Refrain

"Hnn?" The sound of gunshots, the bastardized trademark of murder and carnage. Something that got her running towards the scene of whatever crime that had taken place. She wasn't a hero, hell no, she was her own person and even then, her conscience wouldn't let her, let someone die.

Great, a warehouse, can't just try and teleport in, might fuse with a shipping crate. Gotta take a door or at least, get good look into the place and just blink my way in from there.

Cristina hurried herself along checking for windows, doors, even holes in the damned walls. There was absolutely nothing! Then again, as Cristina mused to herself she could just make several holes, why the hell not? It'd be easy and whoever was in there, that fired those shots, would certainly get a good scare out of it. With her mind settled upon the more brute force approach, she did her typical conjuration of a pair of baseball sized orbs of energy, slamming them quite roughly into one of the portions of the metal wall and did the usual duck and cover routine. Three, two, one. Time for a wake up call boys.

The blast was loud, deafening almost as dust and debris was thrown up, in an obscuring cloud of haze. Cristina made her move, ducking in as fast as she could and made for the nearest possible cover, which was a stake of wooden crates. Chancing a few peeks, Cristina did her hardest to ascertain the location of the proposed victim of the shooting, and the shooters themselves. The one thing that was going through her mind, was that it better not have been a women they shot. If it was.....She'd probably do something she'd regret later.

She could make out a pair of legs and that was it. At least she had an angle to determine where the person was but she still couldn't find the people responsible for this. Now normally, she'd get in and out just as if it were a heist. But when dealing with gun toting gangsters. Caution took more prevalence then recklessness.

Come on show your faces you sorry drug addled bastards, give me one pretty little eye, one stupid flash of metal, and I'll be all over you like white on rice.

Once the coast was absolutely positively clear, Cristina blinked. A small sparkle of white light signaling her disappearance and another signaled her return beside the girl. She was a mess, that much Cristina could confirm. "Jesus." The first time she ever had the urge to pray for someone, and it was at that moment. Kneeling down beside Jenna, Cristina had to resist the urge to run off after the behemoths and make them regret doing this. After all, she could always do it later but right now, Jenna needed medical attention. And seeing as how she was the only one capable of stabilizing her at that moment, it was up to her to actually save Jenna's cute ass from a quick trip to death's door.

First off she had no first aid kit, but then again with the light flow of blood it looked like swallow wounds, so getting the bullet slugs out of her body wouldn't be that hard. Sadly, she had to use her fingers. As much as the thought disgusted her.

"Whatever you're high off of honey, it better last until I remove these chunks of lead. Cause this is gonna hurt, a lot." Now Cristina wasn't religious but even she had to say a little prayer as she dug her index finger and thumb into the wounds, feeling the warmth of blood spurt around her fingers. It was over quicker then expected, for the first wound. Moving onto the second, then the third. After what seemed like hours to Cristina, was only few grueling minutes of digging and picking. As the final lump of lead hit the floor with a clatter, Cristina picked Jenna up and concentrated on the outside.

And before you knew it they were outside, a few feet from the hole she had originally made. Now she just had to get her home and then, she could easily patch her up. Which meant, she was going to have to strain herself mentally with her blinking. "You better appreciate me helping you. Because I don't know how many times I can do this." And then she blinked again. It was momentary darkness as they traveled through the nothingness, between then and there and as soon as she came out of it, she did it again and again.

The fifth time however, she nearly fell over, a thin trickle of crimson dripping from her nose as she let out a strained gasp of pure agony. She couldn't do it anymore, it was killing her and slowly, she struggled with keeping upright the blood pittering off the ground, with a light, wet tapping sound. At they weren't near the warehouses anymore and somewhat closer to her place. Why she lived so close to behemoth territory? Who knew but at least it was better then living near the psycho cowboys and the red haired bastards. Or, god, the teeches.

If she had a nickel for every time the teeches got some poor girl hooked on heroin, she'd be able tomove out of steel city and live the easy life for awhile. "Ser-seriously, ugh, yo-you better a-appreciate this."

It didn't take long for her to reach her apartment, fumbling with the keys for her door, she nearly fell over again. Finally with a click and the sound of tumblers and bolts unlocking, she turned the knob and pushed it open. Looking around quickly, Cristina brought Jenna to the bathroom and slowly managed to prop her up on the edge of the bathtub. Grabbing the alcohol, medical gauze and a few bandages she got to work patching her up.

Several times she nearly passed out her brain was throbbing and her nose was still dripping a steady trickle of red, on the bathroom floor. Everything was getting harder and at least five times she had to redress one of Jenna's wounds because she screwed up but eventually, she was finished and managed to slink her back out into the living room and onto the couch, with a thud. Cristina with a soft ragged sigh, collapsed onto her ass, narrowly avoiding smashing her head off the coffee table before coming to a seated position, her eyes glazed over with a half-conscious gaze off into the distance.

Falling, empty, darkness. Those were the three things that passed through Cristina's mind as she sat there. It was a creepy silence that passed through her mind next and she struggled to stand up, to try and escape it and it all came crashing down around her this time, she did slam into the coffee table with a crack. Thankfully, the impact to the back of her head knocked some sense into her, because she snapped to attention slowly with a notable amount of sluggishness behind it. Then she noticed she wasn't alone anymore. The worst thing however, was that her nose bleed hadn't stopped and there was a nice dinner plate sized stain on the carpet.

Touching her nose, once then twice she stammered somewhat, trying to force words from her throat. It took her a good minute to actually say something, as her brain wasn't completely wired right; in fact the overuse of her powers was causing her whole body to react at a slower pace then what she was used to. "Give me a minute sweetie, I got a headache that'd put an alcoholic's hangover to shame." It was worse then that really. Cristina had used the one example that came to her mind at the time and as bad as it was she doubted someone would like to hear.

No, I'm okay, Just slowly and painfully dying of a combination of nosebleed, and maybe a slight concussion, thrown in with a mix of brain aneurysm.

As she lay there upon her table, she began to wonder about various things, like how her table hadn't broken when she fell on it and like, how her next few weeks are going to be filled with absolute suck due to her headache. "Could you be a dear and grab the bottle of extra strength aspirin from my medicine cabinet? It's beside the bottle of anti-depressants and the tampons."

Now that she thought about it, why did she keep those in the medicine cabinet they're not really needed for medical emergency's more like, helping take care of that problem during her time of the month. "Please hurry, it feels like my heads going to split down the middle."

"Me? ugh," God it hurt to think, why was she even thinking in the first place? Oh, that's right, questions and answers time. "I'm Cristina, or Crissie." Come on, focus you idiot! She egged herself on, trying to at least form a coherent sentence.

"Before you ask anything else, I dragged your blood soaked ass back here and patched you up. Not because I like you or anything, I just felt like saving you is all." Honestly, most of that sentence was an outright lie. As she laid there on her coffee table, she tried her hardest to stand up. Well, that was new, her legs weren't working, or maybe they were just dead tired. The next thought on her mind was personal and she kept it to herself; but even with the pained expression on her face from the headache, you could still see some amount of pity bleed through aimed at Jenna.

"Also, you were shot by a bunch of behemoth punks. Hope that explains the bullet wounds and bandaging." Willing herself, no, ordering herself to stand, Cristina began to slowly rise from the table, before flopping over onto the couch. A small expression of blinding agony, slapped her across the face as she lay there. This headache was a doozy and not just that, but the curious and somewhat personally concerned emotions running off Jenna, were not helping either. "Could you stop emoting, it's making my brain hurt over here."

"Hey, hey, no need to apologize." Cristina patted Jenna on the back, trying to instill some comfort into her after she had fallen onto her. This was not an unusual position for Cristina herself in fact, it was quite comfortable. There was no reason for Jenna to be upset, or confused or even guilty. Cristina had put herself in harms way on purpose to save a life. "I did that on purpose hun. This cities claimed enough people as is; be it from drug overdose, or gang violence. I don't like it when people die and I can do something about it."

It wasn't often Cristina got to save someone, especially someone that was this pretty. Even if she was addicted to drugs.

Cristina looked at Jenna's leg and consequently, the freshly reopened wound and sighed. This was bound to happen, but she didn't expect it to be THIS soon mind you. "Roll over so I can at least get up and patch that leg again. Least I can do since you got me my aspirin."

You know that throbbing sensation that you sometimes get at the back of your head? Well, Cristina had it on like tron and she was doing an awfully good job at hiding it. Struggling to her feet, she absent mindedly began to shuffle towards her bathroom again, to grab the little med kit and it's assortment of stolen medical goods. Hey, Cristina was a thief; so why buy, when you can get it at a discount, a five finger discount that is.

"No problem, so don't feel so embarrassed or guilty about it." Reappearing within a few moments, uttering a few softly whispered and highly selected expletives, Cristina went back to Jenna and plopped onto the floor next to her leg. "I'd give you some morphine, but I don't think I should give you anymore then I already have." Retrieving a needle and a length of polyglycolic acid thread she looked at Jenna and smiled. "This is going to sting for a bit."

Upon uttering those words, she pushed the needle through jenna's soft tissues to begin the process of suturing her wound and when Cristina said it was going to sting...well you can believe that it was quite the understatement.

Cristina smiled at Jenna. This girl was a wreck and as much as she tried to hide it, Cristina understood what it was like to suffer. "Now, now, hun. You can stay as long as you like after all, it is kind of lonely being here in this apartment by myself." Living alone, oh how Cristina hated it and the fact she wanted to move in, to help cope with her problem well, how could Cristina say no to cleaning up someone's habit?

Then she asked a very simple question. One that Cristina wasn't aware of until she asked how she knew, that Cristina knew she was embarrassed. "Oh, that? Well, it's empathy. Simple as that, anyone can have it, you just gotta have the aptitude to actually know how to use it. Plus, it helps when haggling." Cristina had to giggle at her own little addition but the fact remained, she knew how to compliment people. As Cristina snipped the polymer thread that now held Jenna's wound closed, she looked up at the girl with a smile.

"Hey, I may be a thief and a liar, and you can't trust me with a lot of things, but you can at least count on me to watch your back and keep you clean. I mean, I could really use the company." She, Cristina that is, was bored out of her cotton-picking mind. To be fair, theft could only entertain you for so long before it lost it's novelty for awhile she really had no friends and this was the first person she could actually, you know, talk to.

Life was unusual and cruel for her but if you never give up hope, sometimes you can see the forest for the trees. Cristina's forest, was that she was so preoccupied with stealing and schlepping about, that she really had no time to make friends. But that was going to change with Jenna, or so she hoped, because one cannot proceed through life alone and broken. You need friends - people you can rely on and Cristina, well, she'd be damned if she let Jenna walk this path alone.

"Now then, you hungry? If you want I got some left-over Chinese in the fridge, along with some apple pie if you happen to be interested in sating your appetite. If you have one right now that is."

Jenna could not believe her luck. How could she land in the place of a fairy like this? She was... she was actually allowing her to stay here! To help her overcome her addiction! She did not know what to do. There were no other words that could be uttered to describe how Jenna was feeling right now. Most people would not even have brought her to their home to heal her, let alone go as far as to have her stay and then help her.

Jenna had seen the dark side of life. She had seen how cruel everyone could be and she knew she should not trust this woman just out of the blue just because she appeared to be her savior. What she was offering was too kind for anyone not only in Steel City but also perhaps the world. She also openly admitted she was a criminal, and criminals in Steel City were never so nice. Not only that, but she was also a Metahuman and that could spell bad news. But Jenna needed to. She desperately needed someone to trust, to hold on to.

She landed her head on the girl's shoulder, tears flowing down her porcelain white cheeks. "T-T-Thank you! Thank you so much! I don't care what you are, but please, don't betray me," Jenna knew if this person, who had stolen her heart, were to betray her, she would die. At this moment, she had utterly devoted herself to Cristina. She had a friend. A true friend. She did not give a damn if her only friend was a criminal - she was a drug addict for crying out loud. Besides, thievery was not that heinous of a crime, she knew, compared to the other ones like the ones she had been through. She knew it was wrong, but in this day and age it had become a necessity, especially in Steel City. One could not survive from a simple working.

She smiled, wiping away her tears before looking at the girl. Her exposed belly rumbled loudly in protest at the comment about food. She blushed and look down, not saying another word, knowing that Cristina had gotten the point.