Summer Wallock

It took almost half an hour to work along the levee, since they couldn't turn around on the narrow lane, and Nadeem wasn't about to back up his his truck along the entire length, especially when there was a boat that needed to be attached to the back of it. It offered Conan a reprieve at least, and some much needed time to rest, and to ensure that the trip was as easy on him as possible, Summer did her best to avoid the bumpier roads.

When they'd reached their newest destination, Summer didn't immediately notice that the back door was slightly ajar. And despite how Nadeem had indirectly given her permission to enter his house, she waited in the car until he and the others got here.

Conan

Under Summer's gentle orders, Conan had tried to relax - which was quite the oxymoron, because the more he concentrated on 'trying to relax', the less headway he made in actually relaxing. But finally, the even rumbling sound of the engine and the general quiet of the area had lulled him into security, and he'd ended up getting an unexpected nap on the way here. It wasn't until they pulled into the driveway at Nadeem's that the teen stirred a bit and the eyes flicked open, though he didn't try to lift his head or move around just yet. Instead, he let his eyes rove over the house, and finally offered quietly, "Bes' watshhh... fer Ab-hay. He's... liable ta... cuddle ya ta death." This comment was whispered in quiet good humor - rather as Matt had pointed out, the stallion was no more a threat than a wee kitten, for all his size.

Summer Wallock

Summer chuckled at his joking comment, venturing the first sound since they set off from the cabin. During the drive, she hadn't dared a word as Conan struggled for rest, and had been especially quiet and easy-driving when he finally won the battle and slipped in a few more minutes of sleep. "He must have heard you." Trotting from a trail at the corner of the yard, leading out from behind the garage, the black stallion picked up his pace to a canter to inspect the visitors. "Summer, good heavens woman, it's been a while since you've stopped by! You can talk Nadeem into not being so mad at me - I told them not to go in the house, but did they listen? Nooo-siree." Summer rolled down the window so that she could reach out to pat at the velvety muzzle, only to have Abhay stuff half of his head into the car and lean in to nudge at her and sniff at the other occupant, "Conan, is that blood I smell? Pffft!" The stallion snorted and pawed once at the ground, "Pale as a rainless cloud, as well!"

Conan

If there was anything in the world that could guarantee a smile and more relaxed feelings out of the teen, it was a horse - particularly this one, who had a typical male's vanity and a colt's spontaneity and frivolity. Summer might have been surprised when he stuck his head right into the car, but Conan wasn't - he smiled tolerantly and lifted his good arm so that he could stroke the soft nose slowly. "'ey big guy - lon' time no see. Seems like I'm near always only half-alive when I come ta see ya." That was true enough - he'd come to Nadeem's once half-mad with exhaustion and worry over Aralyn, an event that had started with him giving the Indian a sore jaw and ended with both of them nearly being drowned in the river. Another time, he'd arrived fresh from Carl's murder, and his mind had been near-gone with guilt - and now he came to the horse in the worst shape yet, unable even to stand on his own. But he smiled - it was good to see Abhay, who was just as skitzy and free-spirited as ever, and provided a steadiness to the chaos that had been the last twenty four hours.

Summer & Others

Abhay snorted lightly, letting out a warm puff of breath as he leaned his muzzle into the touch and melted with pleasure. "You've found some noises to make, that's gotta be good. Still crazy jibberish to me, but- pfffft!" The stallion snorted again, detesting the scent of blood, and yet reluctant to draw his head out of the car and away from the attention he was getting from the teen, "You keep this up, boy, and you'll have no blood left in you. I'd say eat some oats, they do a body good. Hey- Nadeem's back!"

True enough, the little truck was pulling into the lane, and rolling down the lane with a clatter of metal as the boat bounced along behind it. Summer was able to get out of the car at this point, as Abhay had finally withdraw his head and cantered directly in front of the truck - a very bad habit he'd started with Nadeem. As the woman was stepping around the passenger side to begin helping Conan out, the Arab had parked his vehicle and was marching up the steps. Once he'd reached the back porch and had a glimpse inside, even Summer was startled to hear the man speak tensely in a foreign tongue, seeing first hand what his home looked like after it had been ransacked.

Conan

The smile persisted as Abhay huffed a little and pushed his nose into the petting just like the over-grown foal that the was, still huffing and nickering at him in that peculiar way of his - Conan had always though of him as 'talkative', even if he couldn't understand the words being used. As it was, he was content for now - there just simply wasn't much that could bother the boy while he was in the company of a horse. But one of those few things occurred once Nadeem had pulled up the drive and he began to struggle to get out of the car with Summer's help - the easy-going, often naive Indian spoke in a tone that Conan knew couldn't be complimentary, even though he didn't speak a word of Nadeem's native language. That got him tensing just a bit as he lifted one arm to support himself gently on the woman's shoulders - he didn't like hearing that note to the quiet, gentle voice of Nadeem. But he'd soon understand why - it looked as though someone had gone through the house and turned everything topsy-turvy and upside down. Whomever this shooter was and whenever they'd come and torn the house apart, they'd been very thorough - things were strewn about at random throughout the building, completely against the usual careful order of everything. Books that had been stacked neatly were laying in heaped piles on the floor - the bed was mussed and unmade, the sheets half peeled-off, and a long slice in the mattress where much of the stuffing was hanging out. All around, the place was the same - apparently senseless destruction. Even Nadeem's notebooks, filled with the cramped, looped Devanagari symbols that were his notes on the local wildlife, were tossed about, half of their pages torn out and laying in large and small shreds all about like odd confetti. So it was no wonder Nadeem found room for such upset when ordinarily he was the most easy-going of guys.

Summer & Others

When Summer had helped Conan to the door, Nadeem was standing just inside the kitchen area, hands buried in the short, dark curls of his air as he stood in utter shock and disbelief. He wasn't quite the OCD that Ryan was, but he did keep his home neat and tidy, and to see what it looked like now... more than anything else, it was seeing his years worth of work on the Valley strewn about over the ground. And not only that, but torn up in such a mess that it was virtually destroyed. "I... can't believe this!" The young man finally declared in exasperation, trudging forward into the living room and gaping anew at the destruction that met him there.

Now the little group understood the depth of Conan's worry, and why he was so frantic yesterday to get them all moved out of their houses. If this is what the place looked at after the attacker was finished with it, their physical wellbeing probably wouldn't have been any better off if they had stayed behind and disregarded Conan's warnings. "Here, why don't you sit down?" Speaking softly to Conan first, Summer pulled out a chair from the table so that he could rest himself. Greg and Collin were in the house next, followed directly by Matt who, unsurprisingly, had some comments to spout off.

Conan

For a few moments, Conan had something to fill his mind with, while he struggled toward the door with Summer's help. Already, he was feeling the backlash of tiredness after doing so much moving today - he sank gratefully into the chair the woman pulled out for him, eyes closing, as much for respect for the despair Nadeem was feeling as for how drained he was. And he was tactful enough to keep quiet, for now - this was not the time for 'I told you so'. So he made himself be content with the fact that Nadeem was alive and unharmed, thanks to how he'd made everyone leave yesterday. He sat quietly at the table, laying his face down on the cool surface and taking deep breaths, but not venturing to say anything just yet.

Summer & Others

Summer left Conan's side long enough to approach Nadeem, quietly inquiring if he'd like any help, and if he'd rather everyone not be here. The young man shuffled back into the kitchen where so many eyes were upon him, shaking his head vaguely as he dealt with the scope of damage around him. Much like Conan, he was looking past all the destruction and realize how very easily he could have been killed if he hadn't heeded the boy's urgent warning and joined the group in their exodus. "No, no... I- you can stay." He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking a little ashen despite the darker complexion of his face. Kate excused herself from the scene, suddenly worried about the animals she'd left behind - though she at least would be relieved to come home to an intact house, thanks in part to the guard dogs.

Conan

After giving the young man time to adjust and realize just what the other result of this might have been if he hadn't come with them, Conan sat still for several long minutes, letting Summer talk to the Indian and get a few things taken care of. But finally, he had to make himself known again, if only because he still felt guilty over Nadeem's house being destroyed, even if it had been his own quick action that had spared the older man's life. He couldn't replace the tattered and irreparable notes - but after a moment or two, he spoke up quietly. "If you w'll... set clo-thes on th' table, here... I can... fold. I do some... mean... lau-undry."

Summer & Others

Of all the things that could have made the situation just a stitch less dismal, Conan's voice and the light nature of his joking actually buffered some of the heavier feelings for all in the room. After seeing how desperately weak and ailing he'd been, not just yesterday with his gunshot, but for the past few weeks since Raimi's kidnapping... it was definitely a positive sign to hear him speak like this. Where Matt or Ryan might have been prone to get worked up and not notice such a thing right away, Nadeem forced himself to look at the positive end of things, "We have to start somewhere, don't we?"

Summer sat down at the table as well, feeling the need to stay close to the boy still, to make sure he didn't over do it with the work, and also just to be a little source of comfort for him. In short order, the young man was returning with odds and ends of clothes that were scattered about, and piling these on the table. Collin and Greg pitched in, soon enough, leaving Kate - and a suddenly frantic Matt, as he came to think about all of his computer equipment - take off for their place.

Conan

Not really realizing that he'd been the catalyst between the still despair that had only moments ago consumed them and the work that was now being done to repair the damage, Conan waited quietly while Nadeem brought clothes back to the table. When they were set down before him, he set into the pile with an old, easy rhythm - he'd been folding clothes for as long as he could remember. Reaching for a shirt, he quickly began to make straight, neat folds in the fabric and soon had it in a tidy rectangular bundle that would be the pride of any dresser drawer, and set this aside, reaching for a random pair of pants. That was a little harder, because he had to hold them aloft to let the seams of the legs fall straight, but he made an adjustment by holding them close to his body instead of out at arm's length, and that made it easier.

And as he did so, calm settled into his face - chores were an old, soothing thing for him. They were the things of calmer days when his father was too drunk to care and his mother too tired or in too bad a mood to do anything to their son other than command him to clean the house. On such days, he never had to dodge flying fists or try to slip away from knives or gag and throw up blood when his mother forced him to swallow chemicals that burned into his stomach; chore days were peaceful days, where he was left alone, and where he had learned that no touch was the best kind of touch - a lesson that he'd begun to unlearn only this morning. He wasn't about to admit it - but he'd enjoyed the hug Summer had offered; it had felt good. And with the lives of everyone spared by his quick actions yesterday, his mood was lighter than it had been in a long while as he diplomatically pulled all the boxers from the pile and began to fold them himself, not knowing if Nadeem might have a thing about women fussing with his tighty whities.

Summer & Others

Noting Conan's painfully slow steps towards changing his attitude about what a family truly was, and just how incredibly difficult a task it was for the teen, Summer started up a quiet, lilting little hum as she worked over pairing up socks and folding them neatly into their respective bundles. Her own upbringing hadn't been anything harsh or unusual, but a keen perspective on others and a life dedicated to helping the less fortunate gave her a better insight than most others in the room as to how profound these tiny changes in Conan were.

Nadeem hadn't notice right away when Greg had so casually carried an armful of clothes - including several pairs of boxers - towards the table for folding. He wasn't going to say anything, to avoid making a big deal over nothing, but he was very grateful that Conan took up the task of folding these. Moving on into the living room again, he began to gather up what papers were still mostly intact, and stack them on his desk. "Hey!" The man jumped when Abhay met him at one of the front windows, pressing his muzzle up against the glass and creating a giant ring of fog when he snorted against it, "Did you forget that I need some food? It's bad enough you're keeping all of your visitors inside, where they can't pet me."

Conan

Conan didn't notice it with his attention on folding, but some of the tension through his shoulders and face that had lingered there because of the pain began to fade out as Summer took up the hum. It had been one thing in the early years of his life that no one had done, and it had certainly become a positive thing in his mind when Aralyn had come into his life, because it was a favorite tactic of hers to soothe him. On her better days, she could almost always be found humming - over breakfast as he came in from the barn in the morning, over whichever animal patient she happened to be treating, over him on the occasions when he'd been injured and she'd been trying to get him to relax. And the familiar stimulus, even in a different voice now, calmed him as it always had. As soon as he'd carefully pulled all of the underwear from the pile and folded them, stacking them independently so it would be easy to sort the clothes back into the drawers, he began to pick up the less personal clothing. He sat there, folding and learning how to adjust his arms so that it didn't hurt quite so much for him to fold, for several minutes, contentedly keeping busy - until the black nose in the window let them all know that Abhay was hungry. Even now, with their narrow escape from fate last night, this tactic and Nadeem's jump was enough to get an airy chuckle out of Conan, and a genuine smile, which were two things that had been non-existent in him in the past few weeks. "Thin' he's mebbe hungry, eh, 'deem?"

Summer & Others

Summer didn't quite notice the effects of her humming either, but as she finished putting aside a smoke-gray shirt folded into a neat square, her eyes whisked towards Conan and saw the vague way the stiffness had ridden out of his frame. It was enough to keep her right on humming, softly and in a tune that was all her own, happy to have found a little something that helped the teen. Collin and Greg, now in the living room as well and straightening up another shelf of books and a few photo albums, joined Conan as he chuckled at the horse and Indian. It was the son who spoke next, "Tell you what, why don't you stable him over at our place tonight?" As he said this, Greg looked questioningly to the red-head, "Think it's best we all keep together again, for another night?"

Conan

Fortunately, Conan didn't see the look she directed his way - he was concentrating on pulling a seam straight on a particularly stubborn jacket that did not want to lay flat in order for him to fold it. He might have been embarrassed if he knew that she kept up the humming for his benefit; as it was, he was none the wiser, and continued to silently enjoy the soft sound and relax more as the minutes passed. He was drawn out of this by Greg's voice, and had to nod. "I... don' think tha' they'll... try it 'gain t'night... but I still thin' there's some safe'y in num'bers, fer now." Of course, his instincts were telling him to move and keep moving - if it had been his choice, and he fit enough for it, Conan wouldn't have moved locations at least every two hours. But as much as he wanted to run away, he knew that he couldn't expect the rest of them to uproot their lives as he so frequently did; and plus, deep at the back of his mind he knew that he couldn't keep going for much longer. Already, he was using a lot of his personal control to keep Summer from detecting how tired he was - by the time they reached the farm, he was certain he'd be ready to crash altogether.

Summer & Others

For another night or two, Summer was willing to move about, but there was just no abandoning her home, and there was no way Greg would be leaving his friends and all the animals he was to take care of. She was fine with the moving at the moment because she fully trusted the boy, and as it turned out, they owed their life to him - but as soon as she got things squared away with Ryan and they figured out what all was going on, she was determined not to let the enemies frighten her or her friends out of their homes. "Then it's a deal. We'll stay the night at Greg's before we all return to our own houses. " As the group reached a consensus of head nods, Summer finished up her last article of clothing and stood up from the table, "Greg, why don't you help Nadeem finish collecting his papers. Collin, dear? If you'd stop by the house and get a new change of clothes for Conan, we can meet you there."

Conan

Well needless to say, Conan would be grateful for a change of clothes. He'd bled clean through the shirt he had on, and it was missing a large patch that Summer had needed to cut out to get the bullet out yesterday. The blood on the shirt had mostly dried by now - but the shirt was ruined, and a truly disturbing sight at that. Most young men would have just shrugged their shirts off and gone around in skin, even with the cold outside - but Conan was very private about just who he let see the wealth of scars that ran all over the upper half of his body - and plus, he didn't think he could pull the shirt over his head anyway. But the offer of clean clothes would be a boon to him. Setting aside the jacket now that it was folded and finding that all of the clothes had been taken care of, he looked around, and saw that everyone else had really been making strides in setting the house to rights. Apparently, with him unable to do anything else to help, Summer had in mind for them to get to the house ahead of the others and give him time to change a little more privately, something for which he was also grateful.

Summer & Others

Everyone fell into their tasks, the first of which was to finish getting the house into basic order, at least so that Nadeem wouldn't go crazy tomorrow as he dealt with the finish up work. As the guys continued on with that, Summer reached a hand out to Conan as a gesture to help him up, this time silently requesting his permission rather than outright trying to help him. She knew he couldn't get to the vehicle by himself at this point, but it was more of an act of respect than anything, and to make him feel a little less dependent. "Once you get changed, how does a bite to eat sound? Save for that, I think your due for some well earned resting."

Conan

He reached out and gently took the hand she'd offered him, bracing the other on the table as he fought to gather his legs and make them bear his weight. It was definitely not a pretty thing to watch, but finally the teen managed to more or less get his feet under him with Summer's help, and with the short rest he'd gotten in the car on the way and the fact that he'd been sitting down all this time, he actually managed to help her a little bit as they began to move toward the door. Her question spiked his attention of course - he wasn't altogether sure whether his stomach would protest food or not, but he knew that he needed to try at least, as much for making Summer worry less as for his own benefit, so he told her quietly, "Once 've changed... I guess I coul'... try summat. Can' guar'ntee anythin', though."

Summer & Others

Taking as much of his weight as was needed, Summer assisted him down out of the kitchen, down the stairs of the deck, and finally into the car. "As long as you try. It'll do no good to force anything into your stomach that it isn't ready to handle." Saying that to assure him that it was no big deal, even if she was secretly worrying a good deal over his waning strength and the lack of food he'd gotten in the past twenty for hours, Summer let the subject drop off for now. After again suggesting that he rest, she turned about in the gravel lane, and proceeded on to their next destination.