Harras Grove was a typical upper-class suburban neighborhood. The cream-colored two-story house Lily found herself standing before looked identical to every single other residence around the cul-de-sac.
Lily walked up to the door and raised her hand to knock. She paused momentarily, fascinated by the realization that she was slightly trembling. It had been a long time that anything elicited fear from her, and yet she was nervous to see her former husband. How long had they shared a life? What memories might he have that she’d forgotten?
She rapped lightly on the door. After a few minutes, she made to knock again when it opened and a sallow man with stringy brown hair opened it. "Yes? How can...?" He trailed off. "Lily???"
Lily bit her lip. She’d seen his face years before on a television screen in a Lanthae clothing store, and was hoping he looked better in person. She’d never spared much thought to her married life, but she was somehow surprised that she’d apparently chosen to live almost a decade with someone so...unremarkable. "Hi Denny."
Denny was gaping like a fish. He stumbled backwards and almost slammed the door shut on her "How are you...how could you be...?"
"It's a long story..." Lily said, inviting herself in. "I lost my memory, so I didn't--and don't-- remember anything about you, our kids, or this house.” She looked around and marveled at the otherwise unremarkable simplicity of everything. How long had she lived here? How often must she have cleaned every item in this house, items that sparked no sense of familiarity whatsoever?
Denny was still dumbfounded. "You're alive! Did you tell anyone? We could make headlines!"
"Don't tell anyone!" Lily interjected. "Please Denny. It’s more complicated than you think.”
Denny closed the door. “I...of course, my love,” he said slowly. “Anything you say. Welcome home, after all this time. You seem...different.”
“How so?” asked Lily, heading into the kitchen. Denny didn’t strike her as a cook, so presumably she spent much of her adult life in this kitchen. However even this did nothing to pique any memories.
Denny walked into the kitchen to see Lily examining silverware. "Could I get you something to drink?" he asked politely.
"Um, sure," Lily answered, putting the silverware back quickly. "How about...my favorite?"
Denny took some blueberry-pomegranate juice out of the refrigerator, and surreptitiously grabbed a small vial from a hidden drawer under the counter. "So...you don't remember anything of living here?" he asked, keeping his tone neutral as he spiked the glass.
"Nothing at all," Lily admitted. "I'm hoping that this visit could jog my memory."
"Visit?" Denny brought her the glass of juice. "You don't plan on staying? What about your children?"
"The children!" Lily was about to take a drink, but stopped when they were mentioned. "Can I see them? Where are they?"
"They're up in their rooms." Denny pushed her juice towards her. "Drink up, and then we can go see them..."
Lily acquiescently sipped the juice, and registered a deep satisfaction in her palate; apparently she did indeed hold a preference for rich citrus. This discovery galvanized her. “All right, lead me!” she ordered, stumbling somewhat as she left the room. “Goodness, this drink is...powerful…” she suddenly felt very sleepy, but she could feel her psionic regeneration recycle new energy through her system in record time. Had she been less focused on getting to see her children again, she might have noticed that as the warning sign it was. Denny for his part was furrowing his brow in disbelief as he watched Lily drain the glass with no outward side effects. Putting the vial back incredulously, he led her upstairs.
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Emilena steeled herself as the police station lobby drew closer and closer. It looked so much like the old one back in Lanthae.
She wasn’t sure what she felt. Certainly not fear. She’d been policing for so long that she’d probably top the charts for experience amongst her peers, if they’d only allowed her to be herself. Instead, she was Candice McCutcheon, a mousy woman with a dopey expression on her ID card. Emilena hoped she wasn’t an airhead, because she had no interest in faking a whole new personality. A lot of old memories and habits were resurfacing as she drew closer to the one place in any city she'd always felt most comfortable.
She marched through the door. The only person in sight was the receptionist, behind her bulletproof window. She spared Emilena a glance, and while she clearly didn’t recognize her, the uniform was enough for her to turn a blind eye.
Offices were to the left, just like in Lanthae. Swallowing, Emilena tried to locate the door to the archives. Unlike computers, paper doesn’t ask for passwords.
After ten minutes of fruitless searching, Emilena realized that there’d been a surprising dearth of personnel in the offices. “Hey you,” she interrupted an intern who was scrambling down the hallways with a stack of papers. “Where is everyone?”
“You-you don’t know?” he stammered. “They’re at Thompson's. There was a shootout!”
Emilena grumbled. “Well, that’s just great. They dispatched me from the south division and I’m supposed to meet here with Chief Travis.”
“Welp, he’s, uh, on the field supervising at the moment…” the intern gulped. “B-but maybe I could take a message for you?”
“I don’t have time for messages. If you could show me to the archives, I’ll wait for him there.”
The intern quickly led her past the forensics laboratory and down a flight of stairs into the basement. Emilena swiped McCutcheon’s ID card and the door unlocked with a beep.
“Thank you Noah,” she said backhandedly, already leafing through files. The intern gratefully took the opportunity to leave her presence.
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Meanwhile back with the team, Marcus' radio bleeped as a one-sentence message relayed to him from a secured Purifier channel: FIND AN EXCUSE FOR AXEL TO BE ALONE.
(OOC 2018: Accidentally used Carriage Hills later in a much more important setting, so I came back and renamed this one after noticing I'd double-used the location name)
