Chapter Text
Shirley was not ready when she heard the sirens, she drinks her brew and prays it isn’t her they want, she’s round the corner, her warm green coat pulled over her and she wheels forward towards the place she’d been staying, as she starts to wheel she places the cup between her knees and then places the travel lid over it so it doesn’t spill. She no longer bothered collecting her medication. Whenever she lost it another set appeared in her pocket. She goes as fast as she can, passing the large tower, the helipad in it sticking out dramatically. She turns into a ginnel and slows down. She hears someone scream and the sound of someone who is still very much alive falling down onto the pavement and something wheeling away that sounds like a shoved shopping trolley or, knowing this world, a discarded wheelchair.
She turns to the door of the familiar house, one she knows will let her wait until the sirens leave, and knocks, knowing exactly who will answer the door. She knows that Osgood is another woman that this world says shouldn’t exist. When the door is opened Osgood runs back to grab the portable ramp hidden under the stairs.
Every time Shirley enters her kitchen the cups fall through the table and she and Osgood share a glance as it happens once again. Osgood picks up the cups with hands so steady Shirley would have thought she was a scientist using a pipette. She reaches into her pocket and places the new pack of medication on the side, even though it hadn’t been there a minute ago. She wheels over to the living room and gets up to move to the sofa once she’s close enough, where she knows she’ll be sleeping. She looks at the cup she’s holding and wonders if she could ask Osgood to return it to the cafe. Shirley looks at the bright wallpaper and moves herself up.
She doesn’t fall asleep that night, wondering exactly why that had happened. She thinks about the body hitting the floor and the sound of something being shoved and wheeling away. She knows what happened really, she just doesn’t want to think it. She watches Osgood knock her doorframe three times on the way out. She thinks about the last time she was here instead of the attack, Osgood had kissed a lady five times on both cheeks nervously before she let her go to her work and the woman hadn’t kissed her but had tapped her back five times and she hadn’t rolled her eyes when Osgood explained it was to keep them safe.
She’s awake before Osgood is and waits for her to grab the ramp, even if she could walk down the singular step she didn’t want to carry her wheelchair out the house.
-
Two hours after she left she raises the tablet of Baclofen to her lips and swallows it painfully, without any water. Her throat hurts but it’s fine. She leans back and rolls forward with a level of casualness that would lead you to believe she’s just popping down the shops. She lowers her head and hopes people won’t report her, it’s a high risk but she knows how easy it is to dismiss something undesirable as nonexistent. She sees parents pull their children away and she keeps at her steady pace of wheeling. She has a vivid memory of something similar, but her chair wasn’t judged and Osgood and her partner had their hands intertwined without anyone calling for them to be removed. She closes her eyes for just a second to process and then continues.
She passes the second camp she’s seen on her walk and she wheels in. She looks at the large box in the centre, spare clothing and medicine and mobility aids cobbled together that are barely functional. She pulls out a spare hoodie and pulls it on herself after taking off her jacket and placing it in the box, after that she pulls out a sleeping bag and places it over her lap, hoping it looks enough like a blanket that she won’t get questioned. She looks at the box again and wonders if this is going to be empty in a few days. She spots the memorial behind the box, a crutch with blood on crutch tip. She races forward to check what the little paper note at the bottom says. It’s a name, Shannon Kay, and she bows her head in respect before wheeling away in her new hoodie.
-
She unfolds the sleeping bag off her lap and lifts herself from her chair and takes off her hoodie, folding it behind her head. The floor here was rank but so was everywhere else she’d been too. She takes a breath that leaves a trail in the air. The night is absolutely freezing but she somehow makes it through, her back feels like it has mini daggers in it and she knows the cold got to her. She pulls herself into her chair and thinks through her memories. Sometimes there are ones that don’t fit, her with weapons attached to her wheelchair or Osgood kissing Kate while in a structured blazer instead of the insurance managers typical tweed. She goes through real and fake quickly.
Her body is tired of the repeated motion of wheeling and her arms pause for a second to take a long breath and continues. She doesn’t hear them behind her. She feels her chair being tilted up, someone grabbing hold of her handles and she feels her head and hands meet the pavement with an amount of force that almost immediately gets rid of her chances of standing and seeing if she could scare this being off. Blood fills her mouth and when she breathes it slides down her throat. She hears something walking around her, and then it yanks her up, pulls her into a standing position that instantly fails as she falls against it and it picks her up.
She does not scream, as she knows nobody is listening for her.