Night's Omen

  It was Xander, in the end, that she could appeal to. She could see it, see it in his eyes. The murder scene had been disgusting, but he was on edge; not evil, but not good. She had stopped fighting when Victor had told them to let her bleed, and Xander had, after a moment, relaxed his hold. It was while the others were milling about and talking amongst themselves that he took over trying to tend to her wounds. The rest of them looked like they didn't want to, and he'd take that burden from them.

  "Abby, go in the next room," he said. "Sit down. I know you're not a wuss, but seriously, take a break. I can handle this." He paused. "Connor, you might want to get Erik out of here, too." The Hunter had been staring at the blood something fierce, and it bothered Xander, because he didn't know quite what he was about. It didn't take any sort of convincing after that - Erik looked glad to leave, and Connor was more than willing to make sure they didn't have another incident where Erik wanted to eat everyone.

  Xander bent down, and began picking up where they had left off. He wasn't gentle with her, but he wasn't wrenching her around, either. "I'm not going to ask you why," he said. He wrapped gauze around her arm, securing it with tape. "Damn sure not going to ask you how," he added. He stopped and sat back a little, making sure that she wasn't dripping on the floor anymore.

  There was a pause while he waited to hear what was going on in the next room. He looked her dead in the eyes. "Are you armed?" he asked. His tone of voice suggested that he wasn't fucking around.

  Daphne stared at him, and then slowly nodded.

  "Where?" he demanded.

  "Left leg," she said. It was all she said, because she was afraid if she said anything else, she was going to flip out. Let her bleed. It kept going over and over in her head, his voice. She didn't know where he'd gone, or what was happening. Would he hurt himself? She couldn't handle all this not knowing; she usually knew everything.

  Xander reached into the bottom of her pant leg, and pulled the knife out. He looked at it for a moment, and then raised his brow. "I'm not even going to fucking ask how you got this, because I think, little girl, that you know what happens when you steal from Witches." He threw it across the room, somewhere that she couldn't get it easily.

  "Is there anything else that you have that could be potentially harmful?" he demanded. He could applaud her for effort; he watched as she did a mental inventory of everything she might have had on her person. When she shook her head, he stood up, and then took a step back.

  "I'm going to let you out that front door. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. And Daphne, is it? If you try anything, I will be on you so fast that whatever the doctor may or may not do to you won't matter, because I'll rip you apart before he can even get to you." When he said the last part, his voice turned into something guttural, and his face began to change - slightly, but enough to get the point across.

  She stood, slowly, cautiously. She understood that she wasn't the predator at the moment, and Xander knew it. "Turn around and walk," he hissed. He drew his gun and followed a few paces behind her. "I will blow one of your kneecaps out if you even think about running. Do not test me, little girl."

  Daphne limped out of the front of the house, stopping in the doorway to straighten out. She was trying to summon whatever dignity that she had, but it was so far out of reach. She couldn't tap into it at all anymore, no longer beautiful and graceful and proud. She felt like a cat that had lost its second form, forever burdened to live life in a human carcass and rot away.

  "Move," the massive man behind her said. She heard the slide pull back on his weapon, and she moved.

  Slowly, slowly, she walked down the front steps. She had her lips pressed together so hard that she felt like they would bleed against her teeth, but it was the only thing stopping her from screaming.

  Xander honestly didn't know what Victor was going to do, but he wasn't going to let anyone dictate a reaction for him. If he thought Daphne deserved to die, then she wasn't leaving the yard outside of a body bag. If he didn't, then she'd be detained until he could figure out what he wanted to do - but he was forcing him to make a decision, because everyone else was treading on such thin ice. Xander didn't tread on thin ice; he sank to the bottom of the fucking lake.

  Now it was Daphne's turn. Would she sink, or would she swim?

  She scanned the dusky drive for any sign of Victor, and didn't see him right away. She couldn't stop herself from shaking as she inched forward, knowing that the wolf wasn't lying when he said he'd kill her. Whatever sort of mission from God the guy felt like he was on, he sure wasn't going to give her any room to move when it came to backtracking, and she didn't feel like she deserved it. She had an ounce of respect for him, for throwing her into the fire.

  She wished she knew why she was so wrapped around the idea of pain as a healthy stimulant for decisions she made. Maybe it was genetic.

  She spotted Victor finally, and her blood ran cold.

  "I'm coming over," she said weakly. "I'm not armed. He says he'll blow my head off if I try anything."

  She stopped limping as much as she could and came as close as she dared, which was still a good several feet away. She needed to give him a wide zone to explode, which she sensed was coming.  "I believe him, but to be honest, if I'm dying tonight, I'd really rather it be you. And that's not some sick stupid self-pity bullshit. It just is what it is."

  Xander backed up onto the porch, and after a moment, lowered his gun. He was going to be lucky to have a job after this, but he refused to let the people that weren't as deeply attached to this situation try and deal with it. Sometimes shit just had to hurt. It's just the way it was. They probably wouldn't understand, and honestly, he didn't care. If they didn't get it, they never would.

  Or maybe he was just as fucked up as she was.

  When she was met by silence, she moved a little closer. Maybe she was trying to commit suicide. "I take it you found the bird," she said matter-of-factly. If Daphne was scared that he was going to shoot her, she sure didn't seem to be showing it. It was probably a bad idea, but then again, the lying game was over, wasn't it? Why bother acting like she was afraid of dying.

Clearing the area had been surprisingly easy for Xander, but it was true that Abby wasn't a wuss and wanted a break.  Xander knew just how to handle her, and declaring that he knew she wasn't weak was a good way of starting a suggestion that she go take a break, and she ended up agreeing that she could use one and heading into the other room.  She didn't always do what she was told, but this time?  She needed a fucking sink and some soap.  Seriously. 

Connor would have been harder to get rid of if Erik hadn't really been so on-edge.  Skye and Frank were still stuck dealing with the perimeter, in case a friend of what was left of the vampire downstairs opted to show up, and Kenji just wasn't big enough to deal with Erik if he lost it.  Connor AND Ken had enough trouble, nevermind leaving the raven to it alone.  As much as he didn't want to leave anyone alone with Daphne, it was only the next room.  If Xander needed the help, for whatever reason, they were right there.  The girl had calmed down and was actually being fairly easy to tolerate finally, so he was sure it would be alright.

Naturally, he had no idea that Xander was going to march her out to Victor.  He would have objected to that, rather strongly, actually.  He knew his uncle well enough to understand when the man was in need of space, and he knew that Daphne's fate would be decided.  Not immediately, but after Victor had time to figure out what the hell he thought of what was happening.  Hell, Connor hadn't figured out what he thought of the situation, and he hadn't been sleeping with the chick.  He had no delusions about this being a simple fix sort of situation.  Yeah, not happening.

Apparently, Xander was going to try for that, and Victor actually didn't notice until Daphne was about halfway between the cabin and the car he was sitting in.  When his eyes landed on her and he saw the hunter urging her along from a distance, he actually thought that taking out his frustration on the asshole that was trying to force the issue wasn't such a bad thing to do, but he settled for giving Xander the finger and a dark glare as he got out of the car.  It actually hurt more than he expected, which meant that he'd probably fractured something in his hand when he'd hit the car.  Perfect.

"Your distraction worked.  We found the phone," he said, rather than admit that they found 'the bird'.  The man that she'd tortured for the fun of it.  Taran was a bad person, Victor believed that, but that didn't make it excusable.  It occurred to him to ask her why she did it, but why should he?  He knew why she'd done it.  She'd done it because he'd told her about the scar, which really didn't fit in with the rest of her killings except that this time she'd given herself an excuse. 

How the fuck was he supposed to talk to her when she sounded so normal?  She sounded like the girl he knew, even if she was bloodied up and fresh from a killing.  How many times had he come home to her after she'd done this to someone?  Perhaps even after she'd done all that to Taran?  The man had said 'a few days', so how many times had she played normal for him between carving the raven up?  How much of what she'd said and done was a lie?  The girl he knew hadn't been capable of this, but he understood that.  She'd lied, it wasn't so difficult to understand.  He knew it and she knew it.  She'd lied to him to get away with this, and she'd lied well.  Problem was, now he didn't know what was true and what wasn't.

"You fucked up your own logic, Daphne.  Did you even believe that when you told me you could tell the difference between what I wanted and needed, or was it a lie?" he asked, because of all the things he could have asked, that stood out.  It was so fresh, yet the night before seemed so impossibly far away.  It felt as though it had happened years before. 

He'd kept the gun on the seat of the car, out of his immediate reach.  That was a good thing.

  To her surprise, he didn't shoot her - at least, he hadn't yet. She was literally counting the seconds down 'til he did, but she knew that if she didn't want to push her luck, she'd stop egging him on. However, he was going to begin asking her questions that had weight to them, and it was only a matter of time. How many honest answers could he take before he broke? She didn't want to break him. She didn't. But telling him that?

  Not so much.

  "I believed it," she said lightly. "And I was right. And I've been right up until you fucking showed up at the door with a gun to my head. I'm not even going to ask how you found this place, really, because I'm sure it involves something that I couldn't get around. I got around everything else, but evidently there was something I overlooked, and it was something I couldn't control." She sounded irritated about whatever it was - it had, in the end, been Chase. And Daphne, had she known, would have been a little smug to know just how long it took for her to focus in, considering how random she made her pattern appear.

  She opened her mouth to say something, and then sighed, and just closed it again. She wanted to say that she hadn't lied to him, because she really hadn't - not about where she was, or what she was doing. The last date on a photo in that room had been before they'd ever gotten serious; before he'd questioned her whereabouts. Not that it would matter. In truth, the only things she'd lied about that she could recall were her feelings - and that was, she almost believed, what she was really in trouble for.

  That and the fact that she had an amazingly artistic ability with a knife, not unlike the scarring Victor had, except with much more skill. But now she had them, too. With the damage she'd done to her stitching, she'd have them forever; the bird, she was certain, would be thrilled. In fact, it was that stupid bird that suddenly became the object of her hatred fixation, and her eyes darkened as she focused on the ground, unwilling to show Victor that thing in her eyes.

  How was it - how was it - that Taran was every bit as vile and villainous as she was, and yet he still had someone that loved him? His sister (because Daphne had done her homework, as she always did) loved Taran more than anything. It wasn't just about them being twins. She hated it. She wanted to destroy it; whatever that line between them was, she wanted to obliterate it until there was nothing left but ashes and burned feathers.

  Her head snapped up, eyes coming back into focus and into the situation that she was currently in. She'd just, without meaning to, given Victor a very clear demonstration of what she really was. He didn't have to see her cutting someone's face up to see as plain as day that there was definitely a serious malfunction with her mind. Her expression changed drastically, like she'd just been caught telling someone else that she loved them.

  "I kept - " she stopped. No. She was genuinely afraid now; not for herself, but because she was trying not to make this any worse. Could it get worse? She drew in a shaking breath. She'd kept hoping that he'd see it and get rid of her, before she could do precisely what had just happened. But there wasn't any way to explain that, not in a way he'd understand, because Daphne was crazy to them all at the moment.

  "I can't fucking say anything to you. I want to lie, because every truth is just - " she stopped. What the fuck was she saying? Where had her dignity gone? She began to fidget with her bandages, because she didn't have anything to hold onto, and those came apart so easily. She couldn't tell him the truth, because it would be baring her throat to him. She wouldn't do it. It wouldn't do her any good, wouldn't help her climb out of the well she'd quite amazingly thrown herself into, wouldn't do anything. He could hate her for being a lying, psychotic bitch. He wouldn't hate her for being weak.

  She didn't move forward, for him. She didn't move backward, away from him. She wanted him to pick up that gun; she needed him to do it. He wouldn't; or not without very strong provocation on her end, at least, she didn't think - and she didn't know if she was willing to push his buttons. She'd done quite a bit of that. She was burning the rope at both ends with him, and she could see it had been the worst idea she'd ever had. Not that it had started out that way, but it didn't really help anything to say it wasn't the end result she'd been hoping for.

  This was more torturous than being screamed at or cut up by that stupid bird, that was for sure. She kept thinking back to the wolf - how easy would it be to trick him into shooting her? She wouldn't have to do very much, she didn't suppose. Slowly, she turned her head, searching for his form on the porch. Did he know what she was thinking? Did Victor?

  It would be a fine time for him to finally be able to decipher her thoughts.

  "Appreciate the irony, Victor. I just threw my entire life away to kill the vampire that gave you those scars." There. She said it. She let her breath out, and felt pressure welling up against her chest, creeping into her windpipe. Her eyes were stinging. Oh, HELL no. No, she wasn't going to cry. She wouldn't cry; she would NOT cry. She pressed her lips together, forcing the emotions back down, but they betrayed in her voice. It had broken - barely, but it had.

  She put her hand to her face for a moment, trying to pull herself back down to reality. What was happening? She wanted to tell herself that this was all a dream, but she couldn't. She opened her eyes and he was still there at the car, staring knives into her. "I wish I'd never said anything at all," she whispered. She wanted to take it back, the questions, the lies, all of it.

  She didn't, obviously, get what she wanted most of the time.

If Daphne had known that the factor she couldn't control had been Chase, she'd have probably been much more smug than even she would have realized.  She'd frustrated Chase to a degree that the woman wasn't usually ever forced to, mostly because Chase had lived her whole life with her ability and she'd embraced it from the start, making for a rather high success rate.  Chase knew what she was doing, and Daphne's state of affairs had been spurred on with things that the other woman hadn't wanted to see.  Every time she'd started to tune into Daphne and where she could be, her mind's eye got an overload of blood and gore.  In the end, she'd had to push past those images and sensations in order to pinpoint Daphne's location and how everything was going to turn out, and she was NOT happy about it.  She'd told Connor as much when she gave them the details she had that last time, and he had to admit to Victor, at least, that she sounded both shaken and pissed.  That didn't happen often.  She'd also downright refused to tell them what they were walking into (which meant that nobody was going to be hurt, at least) or what the end result would be.  She'd told them to 'find out for themselves' and not to call her until the next day.  She was taking some pills and sleeping for as long as she could.

Yeah, as if that hadn't been enough to put them on edge.  Now, Victor was wishing Connor would have gotten the 'end result' out of her.  It'd have made his situation just a little easier right then, which was probably why she hadn't told them.  She was smarter than Victor liked to give any of the 'kids' credit for, but he'd always known she was the smartest.  That didn't make this any easier, though.

"Should I have shown up with fucking flowers instead?" he snapped, though he wasn't expecting an answer and was really just venting, actually indignant that she would even mention him 'fucking showing up at the door with a gun to her head'.  Could she have honestly expected anything different?  Truly, he'd expected Purezza to come out that door, considering everything he knew about both women, and he'd been planning on putting a bullet between her eyes before she could blink.  He'd hesitated and been sure to show absolutely no surprise when it was Daphne instead, and that was because he'd had a sinking, horrible sort of feeling in him.  If Purezza had killed her, he could have mourned her and hunted the bitch down.  Her killing Purezza meant that they had to find the vampire's remains, not to mention the evidence of her earlier kills.  He could have blamed it on Purezza, could have assumed she was going to finish up the cutting she'd started on him in the same ways, if she hadn't been killed like that.  He might have known in the back of his mind, but he could have left himself in denial about it.  Now, there was no denial.  He couldn't even TRY for any sort of denial, because eight out of the ten people who had arrived on the scene had seen what she'd done.  It wasn't just him.

God, he was in a mess.

Victor might notice later, when he was going through the things in that basement with painstaking detail, that the dates on the photos were old.  Not old enough that he wouldn't still believe they were hers, but old enough that he wouldn't fail to notice that they hadn't been since he'd been seeing her seriously, or even since she'd moved in.  The problem was that Xander had pushed this situation to the point that he had, and Victor didn't have the time to go over everything in detail, nor did he even know that there would be information like that down there.  He was going to go over it all because he felt like he had to know, not because he thought it would change his mind about the situation.  That is, once he'd actually made up his mind. 

Watching her as her head fell, trying to keep her face from his view, he would actually have just let her have the privacy of her mind on this one.  He didn't want to know, had seen enough of what she'd done to Purezza that he didn't need to actually see her snap, but she'd whipped her head up, and he saw it anyway. 

In that instant before her expression shifted to something that was more horror and guilt (probably over allowing him to see it, not over what she'd actually done), he truly considered getting the gun and putting a bullet in her head.  He really, honestly did, because that wasn't a woman, that was a monster.  Then, just as quickly, she was the Daphne he knew again, and that only made it harder.  If he'd have had the gun in his hand, he'd have done it and the situation would be over.

That was exactly why he DIDN'T have the gun in his hand.

Given the way she opened up her mouth, sighed, stopped, started, stopped, then finally spoke, continuously cutting herself off, she wasn't helping things.  All he was getting was that she couldn't talk to him because she wanted to lie, and that was NOT helping the situation any.  God, it wasn't, and the narrowing of his eyes as he listened to her had to tell her that much.  It had to, because she wasn't that stupid.  She'd managed to elude them for quite some time, and that alone meant that she wasn't stupid.  Frankly, he was surprised that she even said that she wanted to lie, because she had to know how that was going to go over with him.  Of all the things he was and did, he wasn't a liar.  He didn't even like stretching the truth to make others feel better, and hadn't done much of it in years.  That was why he was notorious for having 'bad bedside manner', because he could be sympathetic and understanding, but he wasn't going to lie to them or make it sound better than it was.  He couldn't respect liars, and he frankly couldn't stand them. 

Oh, the irony?  That was what she was focusing on?  At least she'd gotten it out into the open, the whole subject right out there where they could both deal with it.  It was what he'd been worrying about since he left her that morning, since she hadn't answered his calls.  Now, it was right there, just not the way he wanted it to be.

"You threw your life away when you killed those people, Daphne," he hissed at her, finally entering her space.  There had been several feet between them and he didn't touch her or even get close enough that he would be inside her 'personal bubble', but that was a force of will on his part.  He wanted to just shake her, but he knew that wouldn't make any sense out of this.  It wouldn't really make him feel better, either.  "Even if it had just been the vampire, you'd have thrown your life away on a worthless piece of shit!"

No, he didn't want to shake her, he wanted to strangle her, and she thought SHE wished she hadn't said anything?  She didn't even KNOW how badly he wished he'd refused to answer her question, though that was a box of worms in and of itself, wasn't it?  If this hadn't happened, how long until he found out some other way?  What other way, and what was this?  Oh, that wasn't even possible.  She couldn't be, oh, but she was.

"Jesus Christ, don't you fucking cry," he murmured, and it wasn't even certain that he was actually talking TO her.  He didn't want her to cry, because her crying made him want to go easier on her, and he didn't need that interference.  Her crying made him think that she might not just be the psychotic monster that he was thinking, but were the tears real?  They looked real, but she'd fooled him for a long time.  How good was she?  "Daphne, don't cry."

He was going to punch Xander in the fucking jaw for doing this.

  When he made the remark about the flowers, she actually facepalmed. It wasn't as comical as a normal situation might suggest, however. She almost couldn't handle the fact that he was talking to her still. Why hadn't he killed her yet? Did he like torturing her? She wanted to push him, to make him pull the trigger, but the part of her that still had some sense left kept reigning her madness in when she'd open her mouth.

  "They're not all dead!" she shot back. "Look at the dates! That stuff stopped when I started seeing you. Not that it's a good sort of thing, but at least I'm not denying that I did it." She had exploded suddenly, a rabid sort of tone to her voice as she jerked forward, like yelling wasn't going to get the point across as much as her frantic gestures. She seemed surprised as her voice echoed in the woods behind them, as though the sound had startled her.

  Her posture changed again, shoulders hunching forward as she sank a little bit; making herself smaller to hide from herself. She didn't want to be so fucking crazy. Couldn't he see that? Why couldn't he understand that she DIDN'T want to be like this. Her hands went to her temples, elbows crooked as she dug her nails into her scalp, trying to force herself to hang on to her mind, to the small control she had over herself.

  "I'm not crying," she said through clenched teeth. It was obvious she was, but she wouldn't admit it. "There's something in my fucking eye," she reasoned, even though her voice cracked to a whisper when she said it. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't mutilate her way out of the situation, because the only person standing in front of her was Victor, and she wouldn't hurt him - not physically. She couldn't stitch the problem back up, because sometimes stitches didn't hold - like now. All of those painstakingly, carefully woven lies over the years, and one tug on her heart, one stupid fucking moment where she did something out of emotion and not out of scientific curiosity.

  It was his fault. She wanted to blame him - almost, but she couldn't, and she knew it.

  "It's easier for me to be horrible now, because it's easier for you if I'm not human anymore. I'll let you think I'm crazy or sick, but I'm not weak. I'm not." She paused. The truth? She couldn't. She held the rest of what she'd wanted to say back, and just sank down to the ground.

  "FUCK, Victor, just fucking kill me. Stop fucking looking at me like that, just stop and kill me." She couldn't stand to have him staring at her, judging her! It was driving her crazy, making her head hurt. She pressed against her temples so hard that it hurt. "I keep going over and over in my head, why did I have to go after her? You'd never have seen any of this if I hadn't, but I got emotional and it was personal and I was sloppy."

  Her head snapped up and she stared at him, eyes narrowed. "And I don't give a fuck what you say," she hissed. "I'd do it again to her in a second. She deserved everything she got, for - " And she stopped. For what she did to you. She didn't say it. And now she had scars, too. It wouldn't matter what she did, she'd always have them, like he'd always have his. And so would that fucking bird.

  Something in his gestures played back over in her mind, and she stopped her strange panic attack for a moment to focus in on something else. "Your hand," she said softly. "I can - " And she stopped. She could what? Could fix it? She really thought he'd let her touch him now? She stopped before she'd finished, but it still hung in the air like a blade over her head. It was him; Victor, his energy, his love, his everything had pulled her into such a duality that it really seemed like she was trying to exist two people inside one body.

  But Daphne didn't have multiple personalities. At least, she didn't think she did. That would mean being unaware you were doing something; not aware that there was another side of you. She was perfectly aware of the things she did when people weren't looking, so why did she have so much trouble shifting back and forth between the two? Maybe she was really crazy after all. She sank down further into the ground, and just looked at her hands, holding them palm-up, as if she was shocked at something she'd done.

  Why did he make her feel this way?

  She had been fine before she met him.

Why hadn't he killed her yet?  That was a good question, because all of his instincts as a hunter and a practical, realistic bastard were telling him to shoot her and get it over with, that someone who would do those things belonged dead.

Then, he thought about Taran, and finally allowed his eyes to really take in her injuries.  She was hurt, and she'd hurt herself worse when he'd gone downstairs to see her little treasure trove of gore, but it had all been too much.  He'd paid attention to the things that really seemed to matter at the time, like what he'd seen in that basement and what she'd done.  Now, he could think just a little better because the situation didn't demand INSTANT ACTION.  That brought her black, damaged stitches and the damage they revealed a little closer to the front of his mind, and could he really blame her for what she'd done?  To the people before, the ones that hadn't been for any reason other than sadistic pleasure, yes.  For Purezza?  No.  What did he want to do to Taran?  Perhaps not the same thing, but he wouldn't have minded slitting the bastard's throat or putting a knife in his ribs.  Victor wasn't as interested in long, drawn out displays, but killing Taran certainly sounded good to him, and that was even knowing just what sorts of horrible things Daphne was guilty of.  Could he really throw stones over her exacting revenge on someone who'd hurt him, not to mention other members of his family?

Yes, he could.  There was a lot he could do, but the question was whether or not he would.  What she'd done was horrific, but he heard her mention the dates and that she hadn't been doing it when she started seeing him.  Didn't that count for something, that she'd cracked when she found out what Purezza had done, and not because she just wanted to? 

He saw Connor start outside as Daphne yelled, obviously prepared to deal with her in the same way he'd deal with any monster, but Xander intercepted and got a sharp, angry response before Victor waved his nephew off.  He could handle this himself, and Connor didn't look pleased, but he nodded and remained in the background with Xander.  That was just fine, since the rest of this conversation would probably be much quieter than either could hear.  Victor didn't feel the need to do anymore yelling, especially with the way she'd hunched down like that, almost like she was trying to hide.  Hide from who, and what?

It was surreal how normal she looked, even in the given situation, telling him that she wasn't crying and there was something in her eye, just like she'd done countless times before.  Logically, he knew that it could have been an act then and now, but he wasn't so sure. 

"God damn it, Daphne, would you shut up?  If I was going to fucking kill you, I'm sure I would have done it already!" he snapped, not wanting to hear that she'd do it again.  For him.  It HAD been for him, not for anything else.  He had that still ringing through his mind, that she'd done it for him.  She hadn't been doing it after they'd gotten together. 

God, he knew he was stupid, and he hated that.  He hated that he was even trying to consider something other than killing her after all this.

He opened his mouth just a little, like he was going to make some other frustrated comment, but changed his mind and rubbed his hand through his short hair in a brisk, sharp movement, thinking hard enough that it was only making his mood worse (if that were possible).  This was SUCH an impossible situation, and it did strike him that he'd gone and made it that much more ridiculous by smashing his dominant hand, his fist, into a metal object.  He was reminded because the sharp movement of something as simple as rubbing his hand over his head caused a sudden pain that basically confirmed his suspicions that he'd done something stupid.  Her concern over it was also a reminder, as well as being one of those things that made his mind backpedal and reconsider things.  What the fuck was he going to do?

"You, don't move," he told her, and he actually went to snatch up his first aid supplies (the hunters left it all a mess, in typical idiot fashion) so that he could deal with the stitches that she'd not only torn up, but botched horribly in the first place.  He still didn't know what he was going to do, but leaving her there like that wasn't much of an option, regardless of the situation.  Besides, it gave him something to do with his hands, even if one hurt.  He also ended up pulling out his phone, which he'd learned long ago to hold between his ear and his shoulder, so that he could call a specific guild member.

"Dr. Flores, I have something of a situation here, and I need your professional advice."

  Daphne did as she was told when he told her not to move. Well, for the most part. She shifted her weight to take some of it off her arms, which had momentarily been propped out below her to allow her to sit upright. She leaned against the base of a tree, and then let out a surprised cry when the contact against her back began to seer through her shirt. She bent forward, pulling her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them, trying to sit up as straight as she could. Any sort of leaning motion caused the gouge marks to re-open and pull apart further, and she didn't need that at the moment.

  Meanwhile, Xander was trying to detain Connor and the rest of the hunters. He gave them his reasons, clearly unafraid of what sort of repercussion that would follow. He informed them that Victor could handle himself, and that if he'd wanted to shoot her, he'd have done it by then. He rushed Connor back in the house, no small feat, even for someone such as himself, and then loomed around in the doorway, because he told her that he would. He didn't need for her to suspect any weakness from him, or any of them. She was clearly a little too in tune with her predatory nature.

  Daphne watched what Victor was doing very carefully, unwilling to speak anymore at all until she knew what was going on. He was impossible to read at the moment; he was going back and forth through so much that she wondered if she looked the same that he did when she did such a thing; they were subtleties on his face, things she'd taken two years to learn, but things she knew once she saw them. She listened intently as he spoke to whoever was on the phone; the name was unfamiliar to her.

  "Victor?" Irulan said. She sat forward in her chair, pushing away from her desk rather suddenly. She had been keeping up with what was happening through updates between the guild members, but she hadn't expected to be called by anyone involved. After a brief description of what was happening, she gave a long, uncomfortable pause. He wanted to know if Daphne was salvagable.

  "I wouldn't say that where she can hear you, foremost. I'm sure that it gives her hypothetical rehabilitation mileage to know that you believe her to be something in need of salvage," Irulan said curtly. Victor wouldn't get around her attitude, mostly because he was making demands he knew she couldn't possibly meet on the phone.

  "Honestly, it's up in the air. I'd have to have her here for extensive research. If she's as back and forth as you say, she might even have some sort of dissociative disorder - she says she's aware she's doing this, but she isn't, not really. I can't properly diagnose it unless I see it, and her. Can you get her here? Without putting yourself in danger, I mean?" she asked. She sat forward in her chair a little more, tapping the eraser of a pencil on her notepad rapidly. "If you think she's that much of an immediate threat, you can immobilize her, but otherwise... I suggest you get her to me," she said.

  She didn't know if she could fix this girl, but his voice was almost... It was the most human she'd ever heard the good doctor Frankenstein sound in years. "Bring her to me, Doctor Batten. I will see what I can do."

  Daphne couldn't hear what had transpired on the other end of the phone, nor did she know the result. She simply sat, watching Victor's expressions and listening to his side, aware that if the result from whomever he was speaking to was a negative, she was as good as gone. Maybe she needed to be gone? She didn't know anymore.

  When he hung up the phone, she just stared at him. "You always did stitch better than I did," she said, watching his eyes travel along the criss-crossed and misshapen patterns along her arms. She looked down, and then said, almost fondly, but not quite, "That fucking bird got me pretty good. " Her voice held soft wonderment, like the idea that she couldn't believe it had even happened at all.

  It still ate her alive that he hadn't killed her. How could he possibly have that much restraint? Was his sister worth that much to him? She flicked her eyes to Victor, watching him take something from the medical pack, and exhaled slowly to herself. Maybe. Had the situation been reversed and she truly thought that someone might have gone after Victor, she may have done the same thing. Of course, the fact that she, a respected doctor and member of the community, had a literal basement full of bodies and he, stupid criminal bird serial killer with a penchant for bad bets.. Apples to oranges. She was in deep shit because she was expected to know better.

Xander would NOT have detained them if Victor hadn't looked like he both had the situation at hand under control and was okay with that fact.  It was Victor's gesture to stay back that had Connor relaxing some, not Xander's reasons, though he could respect the reasoning behind it.  He still didn't approve of Xander taking it upon himself to force a situation that he'd been called into for back-up, but if Victor was alright with it, so was he.  What else was he going to do?  Sure, he had more personal involvement in it than Xander did, but he had been called in as Victor's back-up, too.  As long as Victor had it under control, Connor could accept that it wasn't his situation to call all the shots in, and he could let it go. 

Xander better not make a habit of this, different guild or not.

--------------------------------

If he hadn't needed Irulan and her skills, he'd have said a few extremely unfriendly things and hung up the phone.  She didn't care for the people in the psychology and psychiatry fields, and frankly didn't put much stock in what they did.  Yes, he knew that they had valid jobs and were good at them (most of them were, anyway), and he knew that mental health wasn't a joke.  He knew just how bad the crazies could be and what trauma could do to a person.  He understood that, in a metaphorical sense, a person could be just as torn up in their mind by an incident as they were physically when he had to put them back together.  He just didn't have any skill for putting the pieces in their mind back together like he could sew skin and mend bones, and he didn't have the patience for it.  He was curt, to the point and aggressive.  He stitched them back together, and then he let Irulan deal with the lingering issues in their minds.  It just wasn't his thing.

Too bad it was biting him in the ass right then.

The entire time he talked to Irulan, he worked at removing and restitching Daphne's already abused skin.  He didn't personally like the idea of putting new stitches in so soon, but hers were so bad that it was going to be necessary if he was going to have any chance of lessening the scarring.  Without thinking too far ahead to what was going to be done with her and about the situation, he was just going with the closest to what his usual reaction would have been.  Clean wounds, no infection, neat stitches.  The least amount of scarring possible.  Take care of her.

Damn her for this.

He wanted to laugh when Irulan criticized him for saying 'salvage' in Daphne's presence, and it really wasn't because he thought it was all that funny.  Not in a good way, anyway.  "I think she already knows what I think, Flores.  That I'm even talking to you right now must mean that I've lost my own mind, and that's why I called."

He knew that she'd need to see Daphne, talk to her, evaluate her.  He knew that, just as he knew that if Connor had called up to ask if something would heal right, he'd have had to see it to know.  It was common sense, but he could always tell Connor what he thought the most likely outcome would be.  'No, that is going to leave a mark and the bone will have to be rebroken if you let it start to heal.'  He wanted to know if it was likely that she could be saved.  Could she live a normal life and function on a daily basis?  He didn't want to have to babysit her to know that she wasn't out carving people up.

That was, if it was possible to get past the knowledge that she'd already carved all those people up.  That was a big deal. 

"I want to know if you THINK you can do it.  I understand that there are no guarantees, but I want to know what your first impression is.  I won't draw this out for her or anyone else." 

He wasn't going to drag her all over the place, give her hope that everything would be fine, only for Irulan to decide that it was a lost cause.  It it was a 'lost cause', if she was cracked beyond repair, he would have to kill her himself.  He wouldn't allow anyone else to, and he couldn't leave her alive to keep doing these things, as much as it might kill him to have to kill her.  Nobody else would do it.

She'd said to bring Daphne to her, though.  He hesitated, still not sure, but she sounded sure enough despite his specifying that he wanted her best guess.  That sounded like there might be some hope.  No guarantees, but hope.  He hung up the phone thinking that, maybe, his life didn't have to go completely sour right this second.  Maybe it could go back to something that resembled the happiness he'd had before, with her.

He didn't inform Daphne of the result of the call, not sure that he could handle whatever reaction she might have.  If she asked him to kill her again, or if she relaxed and he had to see her loosen up and stop with the act she must have gotten tired of after all this time, before he had a chance to calm his nerves and stop with the emotions that were making him less rational and more prone to doing stupid things, he might really do some harm.  Stupid things.  Of course, talking about the bird wasn't helping, so he had to ignore that.  Mostly.

"It helps with your stitching to care about what happens to the patient," he snapped, still obviously pissed.  That wasn't going to go away quickly, just because he might have a plan that might get them somewhere in some undetermined amount of time.  Victor didn't usually spaz, but this was a BIG situation that had gotten him to go so far as to punch a vehicle because he was that flipped out.  His anger was going to take some time to dissipate, though he DID feel just a little bad sniping at her like that. 

A little bad.  It wasn't like she didn't deserve it, but it was a cheap shot and he knew it.  Usually, he wouldn't have cared, but this was Daphne.  Damn her.  "Please don't talk about the bird.  I told him not to leave the area and I guarantee he did, so I should already kill him on principle alone."  No, he wasn't suggesting that he might want to kill Korakas on her behalf.  Not at all.  No, looking at the cuts on her didn't make him want to kill the bird.  Nope.  Yeah, that was a lie. 

  Daphne finally seemed to appear to have calmed down enough not to cry, or panic, or anything else for the moment. She appeared calm, but not placid, nor cold. She wasn't as she'd been before - that unsettling sort of quiet, but as Victor had come to know her; contemplative, still. She tried not to move too much while he fixed her arms, though it did sting quite a bit. She couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath when he hit her with just the right angle or right swipe of an alcohol pad. It hurt, and now that all her adrenaline and panic and whatever else she had in her system had worn off, she was feeling the brunt of it again.

  She must've bled her painkillers out some time ago; either that or she'd become somehow acclimated to them. Or the shock had burned them off. Whatever the case was, she was feeling every last bit of the agonizing burning from her arms - and from her back. Gods, her back. How was she even going to begin to heal that? Being a shapeshifter may have been perfectly handy at the moment, but Daphne didn't do animals, and she didn't do vampires; she was happily human, and with good reason. She had it in her mind that Victor wouldn't like her as much if she were anything else.

  "I was in a bit of a hurry," she retorted to his statement, refusing to be admonished for her obviously bang-up stitch job. "Wait until you see my back," she warned. He hadn't seen it yet; not the actual brunt of it. Just the oozing viscous red fluid and plasma that worked its way into the cotton of her tanktop, staining it and making it harden with time.

  "You shouldn't kill him. You should let him get on with his miserable life. Believe me, Victor, I have already damaged him enough to make my point," she said. She spoke truthfully, but there was something in her voice, a pleading sort of tone to leave the bird alone. "As much as I hate him, he could have killed me, and he didn't; just as I could have done the same. We're even. I don't want that scale tipped again," she added.

  She doubted he would care or understand what she meant. It didn't seem to phase her in the slightest that she'd scarred a shapeshifter to the point of no return, nor did it seem to bother her that he'd given her permanent damage to her own pale flesh. All she was concerned with was the fact that they were even. He didn't have to worry about her popping out of a corner; she didn't have to worry about him slitting her throat in her sleep. Both, of course, would be hard to accomplish - if either one of them lived through the next series of says, they'd both be sleeping with one eye open for the rest of their lives.

  She rubbed her arms once Victor had finished, and leaned forward a little. "Let me see your hand," she said. She reached forward, her tone becoming more terse but somehow softer. "Let. Me see. Your hand." She looked up at him, her head leaning to the side a little. "I've never seen you hit anything before in anger; please don't start damaging yourself now on my behalf. It breaks my heart."

  She wasn't lying. Daphne had done this to try and avenge him, not to hurt him. It just so happened that he accidentally found all of her other little dirty secrets before she had a chance to clean them up. It didn't matter, really - the evidence would be gone soon enough. Nathan would come by as soon as they'd cleared out; he'd lace the place with so much gasoline and flame that there'd be not even a trace of what was left. He'd do it, or he'd die trying, because Daphne had demanded it, and Nathan, though extremely sick in the head, was very apt to fearing his blood relation that had a knack for slicing people's faces off.

  It was just a safer way to play things.

  "I think your hunters are growing restless. Do you have some sort of plan for me? I'm sure you won't just leave me here; you're not sure if I'm a danger to anyone else, or to myself. I assure you, I won't be slicing and dicing anyone so long as they don't try to hurt the people I care about," she said, the words punctuated with a frown as she clasped her hand lightly over his. She was being gentle, which was completely mind-boggling given the current state of affairs.

  Daphne was sort of like a pit bull. She'd seemed perfectly normal, right until she'd started killing people.

Victor made it a point to handle her injuries just as he'd have handled anyone else, refusing to thing about the basement and what was in it, or the fact that she'd gotten this cuts bartering with another psycho for information.  Not thinking about all that actually became easier, and his movements became just a little less clinical and detached and a little more careful as she settled into that calm of hers that he recognized.  If he didn't think, he might almost feel as though this was relatively normal, as though he hadn't seen anything to shake his situation with her so completely.  Of course, when didn't Victor think?

He still relaxed ever so slightly, which he knew was stupid.  Relaxing at all was just looking for trouble in this situation, but he'd been as relaxed as he ever got around her in the past and she hadn't carved him up.  He figured that if she hadn't already, she probably never would.  He'd probably never know just how much she'd wanted to bleed him once upon a time, and how much she'd refused to let herself do it because she respected him.  It was probably better that he didn't know that, though his reaction might have been surprising.  Maybe.  It was hard to tell with him sometimes. 

He hesitated when she mentioned her back, his eyes flicking to the way the mess had been oozing through her tanktop, and that was another thing he'd been trying to pretend he hadn't seen.  Now, he was going to have to deal with it, but it would have to wait until he could get her into a proper infirmary.  He wasn't going to have her pulling her shirt off in front of a bunch of hunters, most of them male and unmarried.  He'd already gotten plenty of remarks from various individuals when a picture was distributed for them to try to find her.  He knew they thought she was hot.  "Of course you were in a hurry.  You couldn't have me catching up with you after I'd found traces of blood, your phone at some psycho criminal's house and evidence that you'd gone after a vampire that had only refrained from killing me because I'd gotten boring when I lost consciousness.  A hurry, naturally."

Yeah, he wasn't pissed at all.

"I'll take care of your back at the guildhouse."

As for the raven, he'd drop that subject.  He didn't need to know anything more about that situation and why or how Daphne had even gotten involved with him.  He didn't want to know, either.  If those two decided they were even, then Victor was finished with it.  Want and need, and neither of them belonged in that mess.

He finished surprisingly quickly, though perhaps it wouldn't be so surprising if she were more aware of the sort of battlefield medicine he'd done.  There was a reason he was quick in surgery, and that wasn't because he was in a hurry.  Habits die hard, and there was no reason to fix that one.  Of course, her deciding that she wanted to see his hand as soon as he was done wasn't part of his plans for that day.  If he'd hurt it, he'd have Mitchell look at it after he was done with her at the guildhouse.  He wasn't going to completely leave it to heal wrong because his hands were much too important for his livelihood, but it really just wasn't his top priority right then, though fighting with her about it when she took hold of him really wasn't worth it, either. 

"That's because there isn't much that can make me angry enough to hit something," he murmured honestly, and it wasn't for the sake of guilting her, or anything.  There were only a few people that he cared that much about that they could make him feel that crazy.  She'd become one of them when he wasn't looking.  "I'll have Mitchell look at it.  Get in the car."

He was going to lock her in, then talk to Connor, who only needed a wave from Victor to be slipping past Xander to get over there.  Victor wanted this documented so that he could tear through whatever was there, and the guild clean-up crews were good.  The police weren't allowed to find this, and the guild wouldn't leave anything for Nathan to even get his hands on.  It only took a few minutes of talk with Connor to ensure that, and then the guild leader was informing Lucio and Matsumori that he was riding back to the guildhouse with them.  Victor was taking his car to Crimson.

  Daphne found it better to say nothing in regards to his comments about being in a hurry, because he might actually slap her in the mouth for them. She Was only a little smug that the brilliance of her long-term boyfriend and his team of detectives and hunting dogs had been two steps behind her nearly every step of the way. It fluffed her ego to know that in another instance, she might be able to do it again - and that was to them. Think about how much normal people missed. She'd been careless even with this situation, what would lay in her wake if she tightened up her defense and planned things?

  She didn't know if she'd ever live to find out when he told her to get in the car in the tone she'd heard her father use once when he'd caught her out after her curfew. She stood with no help from him, of course, and straightened out, sucking in another quick breath when she pulled at her back. This was going to be an amazingly horrible car ride; the awkward silence would be nerve-wracking; or at least, it would have been if she didn't have confidence to sink into her own mind for the duration of it. She didn't know if he'd give her the opportunity - right now, Victor's best bet to keep her crazy from having time to mend the cracks in her sanity with their own chaotic glue was to keep her focused on the present.

  Not that she'd tell him that; she didn't know to. Daphne was very aware, however, that if she didn't pull herself together enough for Irulan's psychiatric evaluation, she was going to effectively nail her coffin lid shut. She began to scheme, doubting herself enough to rely on the strange serial killer mentality she had of preparation and careful thought. She had taken psychology courses, and she could lie without being detected. Would Irulan hammer her with questions, or would she just try to talk to her? Daphne didn't know what to expect.

  She climbed into the car and put her seatbelt on, because wouldn't it be a pity of she was flung through the windshield before everyone found out how insane she really was? She leveled her gaze ahead, letting her eyes unfocus as she attempted to reconnect her normal self to her psychotic self. She didn't seem to notice that they were at the Guild house when they had arrived, and it took the snappy tone in Victor's voice to bring her back to reality. The fact that she couldn't remember most of the car ride suggested that she was incredibly tired, physically and mentally, but with a sluggish movement, she pulled herself out of the vehicle.

  She'd never walked anywhere with an escort like a prisoner before. Victor held her arm at a spot where there were no cuts, and he held it firmly. She couldn't say that she liked it, but then again, he could have been digging into her stitching, too, so she wouldn't object. Her steps, however brutally torn apart her back was, were as fluid as she could make them. When Irulan met them at the entrance of the infirmary, Daphne locked eyes with the Serpiente, as if giving her a momentary evaluation of her own.

  The studious gaze was not overlooked by Irulan, who cradled a notebook to her chest, an ink pen attached at the spiral. "I'll overlook the hostility in your current state, Miss Holliday, but please don't mistake my calm disposition any more than his," she warned. She pushed open the door to let them in, and then grabbed Victor lightly by the shoulder, turning him as Daphne wandered into the room and sat down on a table. She ignored the girl as she slowly peeled her tanktop off of herself and tried to look over her shoulder at her wounds, focusing her dark eyes on the doctor.

  "She needs to be at a considerably lower amount of pain than she is right now if you intend for me to make a proper assessment. I shouldn't even have to tell you this, Batten," she said, her voice hushed. "I can easily attribute anything rash she says to those wounds - humans especially are prone to saying things that they don't necessarily mean when they're in pain, be it mental or physical. I don't discredit her ability to withstand it, but I will have doubts about any answers I get from her if I question her now."

  Her frown was firm, but she was more fearful that Victor would try to make a decision based on information she didn't deem to be entirely true. "If you can stitch her up and get her held somewhere, I can proceed. If you want me to do it now, I don't trust what I'll learn. I don't want you to act with bad information." Her tone was more gentle, now, as if she was trying to appeal to his sense of judgment. She didn't know if she could; my Daphne had done a lot of collateral damage.

He didn't like the silence, but there was only so much he could say without feeling like he was damaging the situation more than it already was.  He couldn't talk to her, not about normal things, because he couldn't bring himself to just let everything else go so soon.  His right hand had started throbbing on the wheel of the Lincoln, but that wasn't a good topic of conversation and a wound of his never would have been, so that was out.  He could have gone on about what had happened, what she'd done, and even just how much the hunters at the scene seemed to dread going back in that basement, but bringing it all up again while he was driving didn't strike him as a good idea.  There was nothing that he wanted, or needed, to talk about, and so he didn't.

He would have if he'd known that it could have done some good.

It did strike him that the way he walked Daphne into the guildhouse was very much like he'd have done it with a prisoner, and that wasn't all that far from the truth.  She was a prisoner, and she wasn't going anywhere without him deciding that she could.  Before this was through, he was going to be the one to decide if she lived or died, and that was weighing more on his mind every minute.  He was careful to hold her arm in an area that didn't have any stitches or raw, damaged skin, and that was for the best.  His grip couldn't be trusted not to become too tight, not now and not with what was tearing through his mind every second.

He might have to kill her.  She'd killed those people for no reason, she'd killed the vampire for a very good reason, and she'd done it all with an incredible level of violence.  She might have to be killed.  She'd lied and hidden it all from him.  What would he have done if she'd told him sooner, told him that she liked to kill and she liked knives?  Would he have still freaked out?  Maybe.  Maybe not, though.  Maybe he could have gotten her into hunting.  She could have channeled that need to kill into hunting down vampires.  Would he have liked it?  Abso-fucking-lutely fucking not.  Would he have accepted it as the alternative to finding out she had a basement of gory goodies and polaroids?  Yes.

He'd gotten Daphne to the guildhouse, gotten her into the infirmary and even notified Irulan, and now, he wasn't going to take shit from a doctor who dealt with the crazies all day long.  She shouldn't have touched him, he didn't like being touched even under normal conditions, but she shouldn't have.  She didn't know him well enough for that, and turning him around so that she could tell him that Daphne wasn't in any condition for this?  Wonderful.  Absolutely brilliant. 

"Flores, might I remind you that this is already not an ideal situation?  If I sedate her to stitch her up, or even simply medicate her to ease the pain, you will have to worry about the medication interfering with your results.  If I fix it without the pain-killers, she'll be in even more pain.  What do you want me to do?" he demanded, and if she told him to wait, he might hit something else, which his already abused hand couldn't take. 

Actually, he also wanted to take a few moments while Irulan spoke with Daphne to take some painkillers himself, so that he could put in her stitches without worrying that his own pain might affect his attention to detail.  He had no intention of letting that happen, but it had been a rough day.

  Irulan stared at him for a long minute, and then looked beyond him, to Daphne. "Daphne, tell me, do you plan to try and kill yourself or anyone else when you're here?" she asked, her voice loud. It was almost patronizing. Victor was pissing her off - he was too close to the situation, and his behaviour was too erratic. She didn't blame him, but he didn't need to be trying to dictate what was happening and when due to the fact that he was personally involved.

  Daphne, who'd been sitting on the table in her bra up until this point, tank top in her hands, didn't even bother to glance up. "I don't plan on it," she said. She looked up at the brunette and narrowed her eyes. "But if you put your fucking hands on him again, I might make an exception." No, now was not the time to paw on Victor, not when Daphne was running on borrowed time. She knew she was, too - it was only a matter of time before they came with a shotgun to put her down like a feral dog. May as well make a few marks on the way, right?

  --- wait, no. She shouldn't have said that. The resolve on her face faltered for a moment, and Irulan saw it happen. It was like a shift, like she was trying to determine how she wanted to behave. If she could consciously choose what to say and what not to say, than there might be help. Still, Irulan wanted to bet that a lot of the hostility was coming from the pain she was in, and she tested this theory by walking closer to her, and closer still, 'til she was only mere inches from Daphne.

  She inspected her back, ignoring the obvious irritation from Daphne at doing so, and then looked back up to Victor. "If you can stand to get her taken care of, give her something to sedate her, and do it. I can deal with this when she wakes up. She's not in any sort of state to do any damage, to anyone except herself."

  She walked briskly out of the room, turning to glance at him. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. He was too close to this situation. He was trying to dictate how to do her job. Did he really want to know whether or not Daphne was sane? Irulan didn't think so; not really. As she saw it, the girl didn't have a chance. It went against her merit not to say something to Connor about ripping him off of this particular instance, but it wouldn't do any good - and if she did, she'd make waves, and have permanent repercussions, regardless of the outcome.

  Daphne raised her eyebrows at Victor. She didn't feel like talking. She didn't want to explain herself to anyone, let alone a complete stranger. She wanted to punch a wall - but of course, Victor's obviously swollen hand suggested that it would be a bad idea. Did he want her to lose her shit on the shrink? Is that why he'd cornered her in here? No, that couldn't be it -- could it? Was he trying to trip her up? No, Victor wouldn't do something like that.

   Would he?

  Doubt began to flood her mind, and she focused on the shirt in her hands, trying to find a air in the ocean of confusion, something, something to hit bottom and push off of. They were trying to kill her. They were trying to kill her. She twisted the tank top, twisted it and twisted it until she heard the fabric start to rip.

The problem Irulan would have found in asking Connor to take Victor off of this particular case wouldn't actually have been that Connor wouldn't and it would make waves.  It was actually that Connor couldn't, and Victor would be the first to point that out.  It wasn't 'officially' a guild case.  Victor had asked for help with what he called a personal problem, and would continue to call a personal problem.  Connor had recruited help that wasn't being paid for their skills, and he'd come to help his uncle due to a familial bond and genuine sympathy.  He couldn't force his uncle out of there.  He could be an absolute ass and TRY to get Victor to leave it to someone else, but he couldn't force it.  Victor would not have it. 

It was actually just as likely at this point that Victor would lose his shit as Daphne, especially with Irulan's patronizing tone and refusal to do what she'd been asked there for.  If she hadn't been willing to do it, then why had she come?  He wasn't asking for a miracle, and he wasn't even asking for a guarantee.  All he wanted was a simple guess; did it seem to her as though it was possible that Daphne could function as a normal person without carving people up?  Circle one: Y/N.  That was all.  He wanted to know if there was a chance, or if he would be wasting his time and getting his hopes up, not to mention Daphne's. 

Maybe he didn't need that bitch, after all.  When he thought about the fact that Daphne's answer had been specifically tailored to the fact that she didn't plan on killing anyone unless Irulan put her hands on him again, and that he could work with.  It wasn't preferred, but perhaps it meant that she COULD stop herself from doing it at all.  That, or maybe she COULD channel it to something useful, like working for the guilds.  Still not preferred, but an option.  There was no way he was jumping into that, yet, though.  He had too much going on to even assume that he might be able to formulate a rational plan, and he was currently more pissed off at Irulan acting like he couldn't stand to get Daphne cared for, like he hated her.

He didn't hate her, not at all.  That was the biggest fucking problem.  Irulan didn't know what the fuck she was talking about.  Connor put way too much stock in her opinion.  Fucking mind-doctors.

Victor actually stood there and just seethed as he watched the bitch roll out, mostly because he knew that saying anything at all to her would just open up a hell of a can of worms.  He had nothing good to say, and anyone who thought he didn't have a filter between his brain and his mouth was absolutely wrong, even if he didn't usually choose to use it.  He had his dignity, and he wasn't going to blow that by losing it in front of the person most likely to tell him he was behaving in an unstable and unprofessional manner.  He might have wanted to hit her instead of the thick metal refrigerator they used for the medication that had to be kept chilled, and it occurred to him immediately after just how bad of an idea that was. 

If he'd thought hitting the Lincoln hurt, he hadn't really thought about it. 

"FUCK," he hissed vehemently, and the only reason he wasn't loud about THAT was because he figured Irulan would be rushing back in over the sound of the blow, nevermind him cursing immediately after.  He didn't bother to cradle his fist or any such thing, however, because he had to tend to Daphne.  He turned his narrowed eyes to her even as he reached for a mild painkiller, and he wished it could have been all business from there.  Really, he wished it could have been, or even if it was all personal, if he could have been teasing her for cutting herself.  Hell, even if he wasn't happy about it all happening, it would have been nice to be able to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

He didn't know if it was going to be okay, but if Irulan walked in that door again, she was going to get a loud, curt order to 'get out'.  He was done playing her game.  Now, he was doing it his way. 

Swallow painkiller.

Get Daphne a stronger painkiller.

Proceed with needles and medical thread.

He gave it time for the painkiller to work and even offered them to her instead of coming up with a syringe and just stabbing her with it like he could have.  He offered her pills and a glass of water, and then he gave her time for it to kick in before he moved in with the needle.  His right hand needed time to stop throbbing the way it was, anyway.

"Since the shrink has proven herself absolutely useless, we're going to do this my way despite the fact that I'm biased," he told her, surprisingly softly for the fact that he'd smashed his fist into a hard metal object for the second time in a very short period, and he fixed her with his sharp blue eyes like he was trying to see through her and deep inside.  "Don't tell me what you think I want to hear.  There are options other than killing you, so don't think that a wrong answer means I'll hurt you.  Can you stop?"

Million dollar question, first out of the box.  Go Victor.

  No, Irulan wouldn't come rushing back into the room, because she half-expected to have something flung at her the moment she started down the hall. She was mildly impressed that he'd hit something else - by the sounds of it, something large that didn't have a lot of give to it. Good. She sincerely doubted it would straighten his head out, because she wasn't dealing with it. She wouldn't want to tell him how to do his job, obviously, or that haranguing a patient so close to a breakdown could do irreparable damage. No, she didn't mention any of those things, because he seemed to think he had a better way of doing them.

  Basically, she reacted similarly to how he might have if a lippy patient told him how to do his job.

  Daphne, on the other hand, said nothing as she waited for the medicine to kick in. It took about twenty minutes; twenty minutes of literally staring into space, ignoring everything but lights, colours, and sounds. She didn't really care to devote attention to anything in the room at the moment, though she'd memorized it. In case, you know. They tried to kill her. She felt herself wondering if Victor was trying to kill himself for a moment, the way he was hitting things like he wanted them to hit back. Daphne almost opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it.

  No, best not to let that crazy out.

  She sat and stared at her hands and wondered why she couldn't be normal anymore. She didn't like running in two different directions; it got really old, actually. This was the first time anyone had made her feel bad about her crazy, or at least do a good job of trying to. She wasn't sure she swallowed the whole idea of guilt just yet. She was upset that she had basically owned herself, because she hurt Victor, but she didn't feel incredibly bad about what she'd been doing.

  Was that bad? She was pretty sure it was the definition.

  Daphne stared at him while she felt the warmth wash over her. Victor was biased, it was obvious by the fact that he banked on her being sedate and more willing to comply on painkillers. He should have given her sodium piothental and then told her she couldn't lie - but she knew what that was, and she knew that  he'd be lying if he said it, and she'd lie because she knew she could. Maybe the rapid release oxys were going to have to hold her over for right now.

  "I'm not killing anything right now," she said glibly, tilting her head at him. "I'm pretty sure that means I'm capable of stopping."

  Her voice sounded slow and foreign to her, but her chest bubbled a little as she forced laughter away. What a silly question! Could she stop? What was she doing right at the very moment? Not killing! Clearly, it was obvious that she had every capability of doing the opposite of stabbing people in the face. He couldn't get mad, though - she'd answered his question, and very honestly.

  It may have simply been the wrong interpretation of what he deemed as the 'correct' answer.

  She smiled at him, though. She thought she'd given him a fairly accurate answer. Wasn't she such a good girl?