unplanned parenthood.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella's Saturday morning had started off... peculiarly, to say the least. Not according to the eye of every other person that might have been at the loft last night, which could be any variety of people for as far as Gabbie knew. Around five a.m., she had slipped out of the guest bedroom currently housing the Unbroken Circle's powerhouse Modi, and quietly made her way on bare feet up the hall to return to her room. Around nine in the morning she woke, occupied the bathroom for a shower and other general morning hygenic activities, then left the loft without initiating much by way of conversation with anyone.

Now, at about ten thirty in the morning, Gabriella could be found out somewhere she had never visited before, and never imagined herself going. Milwaukee Avenue had a small square building, one story, and incredibly non-descript, tucked back from the sidewalk with a small parking lot in front of it. 'Planned Parenthood' was written above the twin glass doors in blue and green letters, in a simple font that didn't draw too much attention, much like the building it was scrolled upon the front of.

She was exitting the clinic, dressed for the chill of the day in her black winter coat with a bright green knee-length skirt and shin-high black boots. Her hair was twisted back out of her face, in a loose ponytail, and she wore a soft black winter cap pulled down over her ears to shelter them from the cold. She was tucking something in her purse as she exitted, passing through the parking lot and stepping up onto the sidewalk. Her eyes were cast down, fumbling with the zipper a little as she closed her purse back up. Her mind was elsewhere, far away elsewhere, so it wouldn't take much to sneak up on the girl today.

[Lukas] Planned Parenthood isn't the sort of thing Lukas usually hangs out at. And he's not there today. He's at the small independent bookstore across the street, and by sheer cosmic coincidence, when Gabriella exits the clinic, Lukas is also exiting the bookseller's.

Milwaukee Avenue is only four lanes across in this part of town, which isn't quite full blown suburbia but is getting there. Minivan moms with their McCain '08 bumper stickers and their christ-fish ornaments probably hated driving past the nondescript little building on their way to the movies, to the supermarkets, to soccer practice, but Lukas really couldn't care less. He may not even be anything more than superficially aware of its existence, and when he spots Gabriella across the street, he doesn't immediately connect the dots and grow livid, scream, faint, etc.

Instead, the Ahroun looks pleased to see her. He waves at her, one handed. "Hey, Gabbie." She didn't hear him, wasn't looking his way. He cups his hands to his mouth: "Hey, Gabbie!"

Lukas has a small bag in his left hand, the solid rectangular shape of a new hardback weighing it down. It's chilly out, and his overcoat falls to his knees, shrouding him in black. The thin, warm microfleece pullover he wears underneath is cream-white, though, and its collar, which is turned up past the collar of the overcoat, gives his otherwise somber attire a spot of brightness. He looks both ways, and then starts to jaywalk across toward the young kin.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Hey, Gabbie!

Of course, the initial reaction to hearing her name called outloud while stepping outside of the kind of place that no one wanted to see their daughter, niece, younger sister, ect. associated with ever made her back go rigid and her eyes go wide in surprise and an initial 'oh shit, I'm busted' feeling swept through her chest, making her heart clench a little and her eyes flutter this way and that to find the source of the call.

A waving arm across the street caught her attention and focused it, and she blinked twice, squinting at the tall, primal, intimidating figure in the long black coat. It was only once he started to cross the road to meet her that recognition hit, and a distinct sinking sensation in her stomach followed.

"Oh, hell....," she murmered.

A glance left was cast, as well as a glance to the right, then she looked back to Lukas and watched him approach. Her weight shifted between her feet, one hand slid the straps of her purse back up to her shoulder, then she closed it in with the other to form a single large fist in front of her stomach. An impulse to bolt played across the back of her mind, and she could tell herself that this was inspired by the Garou's Rage as he grew nearer, but she would just be lying to herself. Rage was nothing new to her. However, being caught in a situation like this by her sister's Beta... that was an entirely new experience.

[Lukas] She doesn't look happy to see him, but then Lukas isn't terribly concerned by this. They're not too close, Kate's sister and Kate's Beta; they know each other passingly and in a pinch he would probably intercede on Gabriella's behalf, if it were necessary, if it were wise, if it was ultimately to the pack's benefit. But they're far from friends, and really, he barely knows the girl.

Still. He's pleased to see her, because he knows her, and because -- well. He's in a good mood. The moon is small; his sister was in town yesterday, if only for three hours.

"Hey," he says again, stepping up on the curb now, his small plastic bag swinging from his left wrist, "what are you doing here?"

By reflex, he looks over her shoulder at the store she just came out of. Only it's not a store at all, and the words over the door read Planned Parenthood, and Lukas is the sort of Garou who was raised in the heart of human civilization, who was sufficiently steeped in human culture as a boy and an early teen, and even as an adult, to know what Planned Parenthood is.

Gabbie can see his face change: it becomes carefully blank, betraying no judgment. He looks back at her, and there's no use for either of them to pretend he hasn't just caught her coming out of a place that deals in, well, the logistics of sex and the consequences of sex. His eyebrows rise a little; he just waits to see what she has to say.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] And, of course, Lukas would have to greet her with the question of the year. She was too busy chanting a mantra of 'oh hell, oh hell' in her mind to be thinking about an excuse to place herself in front of this particular parking lot. Now that the question was asked, put out on the table, she was left without words. There was the truth, which was always the easiest and usually the best option, but girls rarely thought so clearly, especially when on the spot.

It was worse when his pale blue eyes moved from her face to the clinic behind her, when his face fell completely blank, then his eyes slowly fell back on her, expectant. He already knew, to a point, had his assumptions (and they couldn't be too far off point, could they?), but wanted to hear her explaination. How sick was that? Making the girl flounder.

She glanced away, eyes casting down and to the side, then she turned her gaze back to the store front as well. There was a moment's pause, then she sighed quietly and looked back up to Lukas. Her hands parted from where they were held in front of her stomach and lifted, palms up, level with her shoulders. The gesture was an exaggerated shrug-- a 'well, what can you do?' expressed by way of physical motion rather than words.

"I don't suppose a detailed response is required, hm? Not much needs to be said."

[Lukas] "No. Actually," and Lukas is very gentle about this, though also utterly incontrovertible, "there's a lot that needs to be said."

He looks over her head again for another moment. He's thinking, his face shuttered, thoughts his own, and he makes Gabriella wait while he thinks.

Eventually, his eyes return to the girl. "Are you pregnant? Sick?"

[Gabriella Bellamonte] "Well, Lukas, when you're sick you generally go see a doctor...."

For some reason or another, she felt that being a smartass would help the situation some. Or make her feel better, less shakey. Her stomach fluttered from nerves, and images of her sister's outraged face, the disappointed expressions from her brother and mother kept flashing through her mind. Sighing a little and shaking her head, she slipped her hands into her coat pockets and glanced awkwardly up the sidewalk, in the direction that Lukas faced away from, as though she was half-convinced that someone else from the pack would be tailing him.

After all, packs stuck together, right? Plus, the last few times that she'd seen Lukas, that he'd found her in a compromising situation, Katherine had been two minutes behind him. She loved her sister dearly, this was a fact, but she just doubted the Philodox's ability to see shades of gray sometimes.

"Neither, I suspect. Simply cautious." Her chin bobbed in the direction of the clinic. "Better safe than sorry."

[Lukas] Neither, she says, and Lukas' face hardens: he thinks she's lying to him. But then she goes on, she says better safe than sorry, and suddenly there are words to be read between the lines.

He considers her a moment, the same way he had considered the sign, the way he had considered his own thoughts. He clasps his hands behind his back, and his posture becomes effortlessly upright.

"Did you sleep with Hatchet?" He just asks it, just like that.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas frowned like he didn't believe her, and she discovered quickly that she didn't care whether he believed her or not. If she were lying? If she had gone in there to schedule an abortion or grab some antibiotics for a sexually transmitted disease or anything of that sort? That would have been another story. She would have been compelled to explain further, to make up a situation on the spot and convince Lukas that no, he was wrong, she was neither 'sick' nor pregnant. It was true what they said, though, so long as you knew you were telling the truth that was all that really mattered.

The truth always came out in the end anyways, didn't it?

Then something flashed across Lukas's face-- she couldn't read exactly what it was, he was always one of the more difficult people to read, tended toward logic than emotion, and because of that he gave her little to pick up on, but she could still tell when the gears behind those glacial eyes were whirring. Then, he expressed his next question, straight forward and with nothing in the way of tact.

Did you sleep with Hatchet?

Her spine stiffened, her shoulders levelled, and her eyes flashed something negative-- anger, insult, defensiveness... It was difficult to determine what it was exactly because it faded out as quickly as it had snapped to life. One thin, light colored eyebrow lifted on her forehead, and her response was a faint huff of air through her slightly parted lips, which manifested in the form of a small white cloud that would dissappate before it could even float a full foot away from her face.

"I find that hardly any of your business."

[Lukas] "No, it's not, but it is your sister's business," Lukas' logic is cool and relentless, "and if you prefer, we'll take this to her and she can ask you."

A beat.

Then, startlingly, there's a softening in the way Lukas looks at the girl -- stiff-backed, defiant, defensive, scared. Lukas never had a kid sister. He has an older sister, and that changes things a little; it puts them on more level ground. She was the elder, if only by a year, and therefore it was her job to be responsible and set a good example. He was the boy, and therefore it was her job to grow up to be a man and all that that entails. They bickered and squabbled, but in the end they were partners in crime, on equal footing.

Until he Changed, anyway. Then things changed, too. Less between he and Anezka than between he and his parents, he and his father, true; but they still changed.

Unimportant. The point is: Lukas looks at the girl with something briefly and surprisingly akin to pity, or possibly compassion. His weight shifts a little, not so squared, not so monolithic. He exhales and it's almost a sigh.

"Listen, Gabbie, I'm trying to watch out for you too. It'll be a lot easier on us both if you're just upfront with me. Then if there's something Katherine needs to know, I'll do my level best to break it in a way that won't sent her up in flames. Okay?"

[Gabriella Bellamonte] The first words that Lukas spoke had the littlest Bellamonte's eyes flashing again. Her lips thinned as she pressed them together, her brows lowered some as her eyes narrowed at the Shadow Lord around, and her jaw seemed to square a little as she set it. In her pockets, her hands tightened into small fists that would be quite useless even if she were stupid enough to turn them on The Unbroken Circle's Beta, and a decision was set in her mind.

Fuck you, Lukas, I'm walking away.

But then his expression changed a little, softened into something curious to see him wearing. He tried to compromise, tried to coax a proper answer out of her by switching tactics-- you attract more bees with honey than you do with vinegar and all. But the damage of the first sentence was done. She was defensive now, on guard, the doors had closed and he should consider himself lucky that she was even communicating with him now through the peek hole and mail slot.

So she glanced up the street, in the direction of the nearest bus stop, which was roughly a block and a half away, and she replied in a tone that she was surprised she managed to keep so even, so calm sounding. "There's nothing that Katherine needs to know, Lukas. Nothing needs to be broken to her, or Edward, or anyone for that matter. I'd appreciate it if you let this particular 'sleeping dog' lie."

[Lukas] The Ahroun does not look away as the girl does. His hands are clasped behind his back, so she can't see them -- but they're open, the fingers relaxed, a stark contrast to her clenched fists.

Looking at them, standing there in front of Planned Parenthood with Lukas calm and steady and Gabriella closed up tight and angry, it'd be so easy for a passerby to assign a story to them. Here's the high school senior and her college boyfriend. She's pregnant and she's mad at him. He wants her to get an abortion and that's it, it'll be over with, but she doesn't think it's that simple and she wishes he'd quit pushing. Or; he wants her to keep it and she doesn't. Or; he fucking gave her the clap.

"You know I can't do that," Lukas says, rather gently. "Especially if it was Hatchet." A pause. "Was it?"

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella, for one, was done with loitering in front of Planned Parenthood. So she forced her fists to uncurl, moved them out of her pockets to tug on her cap, securing it over her ears more comfortably, and adjust the broad lapels to her winter coat. She would turn, keeping her front open to Lukas as something of an invitation for him to walk with her-- she wasn't walking away from him, she just wanted to be elsewhere while they spoke. If he didn't like that, he'd either not follow and leave her the hell alone, or he would grab her coat and stop her.

Either way, she started walking toward the bus stop she started. Today was a Public Transportation day for Gabbie. Teenagers drew less attention when they took public transportation than when they drove around suburban areas like this in cars that were too expensive for the average eighteen-year-old to be behind the wheel of.

...Again, Lukas pressed for a name. And again Gabbie gave him nothing to work with.

"You can do what you like, Lukas, don't tell me you can't. You don't need to share every aspect of my personal life with my sister. She is my sister, you know, and I'll tell her when I'm comfortable to do so. It'll be something between the two of us and have nothing to do with you, because, obviously, you aren't the center of the topic."

Pause.

"...And it's still none of your business who I was with."

[Lukas] She starts to walk toward the bus stop, and originally, when he first saw her across the street, Lukas would have been glad to give her a ride.

That possibility does not seem feasible now.

Nor does he follow her. He stands where he is, and as she pulls away, he raises his voice to follow her. "I'm going to have to tell Katherine, Gabbie."

He waits for her to face him again, or at least to stop. A step closer, just enough so he can drop his voice again, and this is not a threat; this is simply information at this point.

"I know you'll resent it and consider it an act of interference betrayal, and I'm sorry if you feel that way. But from my standpoint, knowing what I do and not knowing what I don't, to say nothing at all would be inexcusable. If our places were switched and you were my sister, I would want Katherine to tell me." A beat. "I'll give it a few days. 'til Monday night, so you have time to do what you need to. But it might go easier on you if you tell her yourself by then."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas's voice at her back brought Gabbie's steps to a halt, the quiet clicking of the hard, but low heels of her black boots quieting on the pavement. She closed her eyes, took a breath for compsure (perhaps steeling her resolve, or swallowing down a flash of catty temperement that would do nothing more than make the Shadow Lord even more impossible to interact with), then turned at the feet, waist, and shoulders so she was facing him three quarters of the way instead of completely face-on.

He took a step closer, lowered his voice, and set boundaries and timelines. She responded to this by wrinkling her nose a little and scowling at him heavily.

"Lukas, tell me this. Why is it that you feel the need to share my sex life with my sister? I mean, I could certainly understand telling her if I were pregnant, or if someone was trying to claim me as their mate and prevent her or Edward from pawning me off for political family gain, but neither of these circumstances are the case. I had sex, and it's that simple."

She pauses, and, almost reluctantly, she adds in at the end. "If it helps any, it wasn't with Taggart."

[Lukas] "Was it a Garou?" He doesn't answer her directly.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] He deflected her question, swatting it away as a horse would a fly by way of whipping its own flanks with its tail. Her eyes narrowed, and she took a moment before answering in a low tone. Her irritation with his nosiness was mounting, but what could she do about it, really? She could walk away, and he would just shrug and run to Katherine to inform her that her cherished baby sister was a harlot.

So she'd do her best to 'negotiate', as far as one can with Lukas anyways.

"Yes," she half-growled at him. "...Why do you push for a name, Lukas? Is it really necessary?"

[Lukas] "I'm not pushing for a name," Lukas explains this; patiently, even earnestly. "I'm asking so I can answer your question. Because if it was Garou, then it's not your sex life. It's politics. And your sister needs to know." A pause. "I'm sorry."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] I'm sorry.

"Oh like hell you are."

She snapped at him here, and no doubt her irritation was understandable. The poor girl couldn't catch a break. She found herself attracted to someone, mildly, just wanting to spend time with and get to know them, only to be dragged back by the wrist and scolded for being an awful, awful girl to stray to such a person while the other party got his jaw busted by a Modi and his chops busted by pretty much everyone else. And now that she was doing what young adult girls do-- taking up personal business and exploring their feelings, options, and other such things, she was having the hawk-like (or bloodhound-like, considering how easily he seemed able to sniff her out) nose of her siblings' front man shoved directly into the gooey center of her business.

Of course she knew that it was political, she was well versed with her role in Garou society. This didn't make her like it, though, didn't make her anymore comfortable with the notion. It always rubbed her fur the wrong way to be reminded of her place. She could bring it up and discuss it fine on her own, but when it was slapped in her face like this she got... snippy.

"But you know something? That's fine. Be as insensitive as you wish, because saying 'sorry' makes it alright." One hand cut through the air, waving in an irritated manner, as though chasing away a fat junebug that had been droning in her ear for the past minute. "You'll do what you chose, no matter how much I plead with you not to, how much I beg for my privacy and to be let be. So I'd sooner not demean myself by trying."

She felt entirely too warm now, flushed under the collar of the cream-colored turtleneck she opted to wear today, which peaked out from under her winter jacket to hug at her throat. Her eyes felt as though they had just found a hint of smoke on the breeze, burning slightly, from frustration and a small note of humiliation in being found in such a compromising situation and interrogated in front of the 'scene of the crime'. It was all she could do to not sniff angrily and insist that it was the cold that was making her nose threaten to run.

[Lukas] Gabriella's probably right not to try to plead or argue. Arguing with Lukas can be infuriating, and pleading with him even worse: like arguing or pleading with a tidal wave. Words disappear into his unruffled cool like arrows into an ocean, and in the end he'll break on whatever shore he's headed toward, undeflected.

Only -- for a second there, a flicker of an instant, Lukas' brow darkens; he frowns at her, as though troubled or angry.

"I do what I think is right, Gabriella," he says, quietly, and very steadily, but his eyes are hard for a second. "I don't get to choose what that is."

Then it's past. On a short inhale, he squares his weight between his feet, nods her toward the bus stop. "You'd best be on your way. And Gabbie," and damned if this didn't feel familiar to him, "tell your sister before I do."

[Danicka Musil] Near the Planned Parenthood is a Bank of America. Between the Bank and the Planned Parenthood there is a Horuss Microsystems Computer Center. Danicka Musil does not exit either of these locations. She comes out of the Dunkin Donuts across the street, a cup of coffee in hand, sunglasses on her face, hair in a low ponytail. The ends are curled and resting on the front of one shoulder. Her coat is nearly knee-length, black, and wool. Her gloves are black leather. Her jeans are a dark wash, skinny, and she's wearing ankle boots. Black ones.

Over her shoulder is a large bag, not the hobo-styled one she used the other night but broader, stiffer, more businesslike. It's in a dark red. She blows on her latte through the little hole in the plastic lid, playing with some shiny object in her other hand. And that is when she sees --

(feels)

-- two people she knows across the street and down the sidewalk. Outside of a Planned Parenthood. Whatever Danicka's eyes do then can't be seen; she's wearing sunglasses. Whatever instinct she might have to just keep on walking is not followed; she has to pass them to go back the way she came, to go back to where her car is parked. She has places to be today, but they can wait.

Like a true New Yorker, Danicka does not head for the crosswalk but glances quickly and then jogs across the street, careful not to spill her coffee, which smells faintly of caramel. She is in front of Hamilton's Bar and Grill now, a couple of businesses down, and quite definitely walking their way.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] The scene Danicka would walk out to see was one easily misinterpreted, unless you knew precisely who the two standing on the sidewalk in front of that plain one-story white building, made obtrusive and controversial only by the blue-and-green lettering above the front doors. Lukas and Gabbie stood facing one another. Lukas looked mildly irrate at best, but mostly just blank. Gabriella, however, looked rather frustrated. They looked to be arguing. ...Rather, Gabbie looked to be arguing with a brick wall.

He told her to be on her way. Scram, run home little girl. And reminded her of that deadline he'd set for her. Tell Katherine, or I will. Her brows furrowed, her throat tightened, and despite the biting cold of the last month of Midwestern winter biting at her face, she felt that flushed heat climb up out of her collar and along the back of her neck, following her hairline to her temples and forehead. She didn't blush, didn't turn red with her frustration, but she did feel rather warm, itchy, and uncomfortable.

Her mouth opened, no doubt to retort (Don't you tell me what to do!), but the words were stilled by the image of another crossing the street, walking directly toward them without any attempt to hide her path. The feminine figure, nice clothes, and blonde ponytail gave her away-- Danicka. Gabbie wasn't entirely sure how to feel about this, but it was unfortunate that she didn't find any comfort in the fact that another was joining the party... no comfort yet, anyways.

[Lukas] The thing is, it's not like Danicka just shows up out of the blue. She doesn't just materialize. She comes out of a Dunkin Donuts, and then she crosses a street, and then she walks over, and this takes about a minute all told. And for this moment, Lukas wonders if politeness were not overrated; he wonders if he shouldn't just turn and walk the other way before whatever shit might hit the fan did.

Because Lukas does remember the last time the three of them were together in the same space, and that was at the club, where Danicka was so familiar and tender toward Gabriella that Lukas wondered about her leanings. Because Lukas remembers her reaction to his pushing Martin's head into a toilet, and while it's true that Martin's head is not in a toilet, nor Gabriella's, certain things about this situation rang a little too familiar for his taste.

Tell her, or I will.
Tell her, before I do.

Lukas wonders why the fuck Katherine's shit always flew across him first. Lukas thinks being Beta sucks ass sometimes.

And then Lukas turns a little, opening the head-on conversation into a triangle, including Danicka as she comes up on the curb.

"Danička," he says, deadpan, and it's not even an effort -- this quip is weak at best, "please tell me you're not headed to Planned Parenthood too."

[Danicka Musil] The feminine figure, augmented slightly rather than hidden with the coat she's wearing and the shape it is cut to, is sipping from her Dunkin Donuts cup. Danicka carries herself the way she always does out on the town, though this area is a bit out of her usual range. The shiny object she is spinning around one finger is a keychain that catches and flashes back the thin sunlight; there are no keys attached to it.

She is not walking quickly, or any quicker than her natural pace, which is actually quite a long stride. That pace, however, takes her smoothly past the interior decorating shop right beside the Planned Parenthood. Danicka's face is not drained of color -- her cheeks and nose are tipped with pink, as though she has been out in rather chill weather for some time now -- and her expression, at least what can be seen of it, is utterly calm.

Even when she reaches the young Silver Fang Kinfolk and the tall Shadow Lord that cannot help but loom over both of them. It is a mark of respect, or of familiarity, that she stops toying with the keychain and catches it mid-spin in her palm. That hand lifts and pushes her sunglasses up over her forehead; her eyes are no more shocked or appalled than they might have guessed. She nods a hello to Lukas, and then he speaks, precluding her greeting of Gabriella.

Danicka does not laugh. She looks at him placidly, lowers her eyelashes once in a slow blink, and replies gently: "No, Lukáš," she says, and though her expression is reserved as a table at a fine restaurant her tone of voice is genuinely in its reassurance, which may be even more of a slap in the face at the moment. She goes on with a quip of her own, just as smooth but somehow instinctively he'll know it's less gentle: "I'm a fucking bitch, remember?"

Her eyes stay on him for a moment, unchallenging but almost...gauging...and then move to Gabbie. "Hey, Gabbie," she says with a slight turning-up of the corners of her mouth, taking a sip of her coffee.

[Lukas] (fuck. remove the "too" from Lukas' line back there. he would NOT just reveal where gabbie's been just like that.)

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella couldn't help but appreciate Danicka's presence as soon as Lukas recognized her approach and turned, taking his focus off the Silver Fang kingirl for the moment, redirecting it on someone else, even if only for a moment. This gave her a chance to breathe, to relax her stance some, to take half a step backward to adjust how her weight distributed itself through her hips, knees, and into her feet. A gloveless hand lifted to swipe at her forehead, running cool fingers over her too-warm forehead and taking some comfort in that sensation while she brushed loose hair away from her face.

They bantered, if you could call it that.
Please tell me you're not headed to Planned Parenthood.
I'm a fucking bitch, remember?

This had Gabbie's eyebrow lifted just a little. She was under the impression that Lukas and Danicka had become lovers, though whether this was still the case or not she was uncertain of. It wasn't her business, anyways, so she didn't linger on that thought too long. Simply pulled her hat from her head when she decided she felt too warm for it and folded it into her coat pocket with one hand while smoothing her hair down with the other.

"Hello Danicka," the greeting was returned, but it didn't hold the same enthusiasm and warmth that it normally did. She was too flustered, distracted, and bothered for extreme 'bouts of congeniality at the moment.

[Lukas] It wasn't quite banter; she wasn't quite kidding. Still, it's unexpected enough to surprise, or maybe shock, a huff of a laugh out of him. It lasts a second. Then it's gone.

There's a bookstore across the street. A bookstore. Not a comics store, not a christian bookstore. Just a small, dingy, independent bookstore that probably won't last through this economic downturn. Lukas has done his part, though: when he unclasps his hands from behind his back, there's a small bag around his left wrist and the unmistakable shape of a hardcover in it.

"You caught me on my way out," he says. "I'll see you, Danička. Gabriella."

[Danicka Musil] The keychain is slipped into the large purse Danicka is carrying. The coffee is shifted to her other hand. Her now-freed arm moves to Gabriella, slipping around her shoulders. "See you," she says to Lukas, recognizing that he is pulling the rather staid and genteel version of running for his fucking life and instead of being amused by it, she is thinking to herself that it's one of the smartest things she's ever seen him do.

She turns to look at Gabriella. "Going in or coming out?" is all she asks.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas had told her to scram, and when Danicka arrived he decided to turn around and scram himself. He said he'd be seeing them, and polite upbringing told her to give him some sort of a farewell-- see you, goodbye, take care.... She didn't, though. She just watched the side of his head as he turned and parted way from the two women, her eyes reading both being upset with him and being exhausted by his company.

It really was probably better that he opted to leave. She watched his back when it was given to them and as it started to shrink as distance was gradually put between himself, the Kinwomen, and that damn clinic of controversy. You were damned to it even after you walked out its doors, if you were within fifty feet of it you were guilty of associating with it.

Danicka's arm slipped around Gabbie's shoulders, and she glanced up at the taller, older woman and lifted her eyebrows at the question that was asked. Were Danicka anyone else, at this point Gabriella probably would have shoved her away and stalked off, frustrated and far from close to being in the mood to play nice. However, she knew that Danicka didn't seek to tease or judge. She asked so that she knew whether or not they would be walking away from the clinic or whether the blonde would be offering her company and escorting the young girl-- so obviously new to this entire aspect of existance-- through those doors.

So, rather than responding with hostility, she answered quietly and, to a point, meekly. "Coming out."