Kel's Hel

"Tracy. And you can't hurt or insult me, dear. Better people than you have tried. Whatever happens, I'll handle it."

Kelly stood up slowly, pretending her calves weren't spasming as she did. She took a deep breath, "One last thing? Um... I know small town and all... But I don't want people to know."

"Doctor-patient confidentiality applies." Tracy shrugged, "But, just so you know, Erik is a gossip. Man always gives me the shits. Can't keep his mouth shut for two seconds."

"That's Wendy's brother?"

"Yes. She's close to both her brothers. Twins, equally irritating. Are you right to walk to the door?"

Kelly nodded, and started to tiredly drag both her feet. "Ta, doc. Hopefully won't see you again, anytime soon."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

---

Erik did not look at all like Wendy.

For starters, he was a freaking giant. The blonde was sitting in the seat of his oversized four wheel drive, when Kelly made it outside. He was practically scraping his head on the roof of it, when she climbed into the passenger seat.

He smiled broadly at her, "So you're the cutie that has my sister all in a titz. Where we headed, hot stuff?"

"Vince Street." She said hesitantly, "Uhm... You're Erik, right?"

"Erik. Cuter of the two twins." He nodded as he pulled out and onto the road with a rough hand that shoved the gear stick a little bit hard. "You're the gal who just moved to town, right? Rented Olivia's old place. Think she used to sell knitted clothes and teddy bears out of there. What are you making of it?"

"Flowers. And what you really want to know, is why Wendy's not in the car, and why she was balling her eyes out." Kelly said tiredly.

He nodded grudgingly, "Yeah. Basically. When Wendy told me that I still had to take you, I gotta admit, I hesitated."

"I'm going to call her, tomorrow. Talk things over." Kelly replied, "I still like her as a friend, and I'm still going to treat her as a friend... I'm just... Well, some things are shit, so I'm going to bask in shit for the rest of this shitty day."

He looked confused, "You don't... Want someone to pull you out of the shit?"

"Ain't no doin'. Nothing to do with a person or their skill." She replied, feeling the last of her strength beginning to wane. Her eyelids were getting heavy, and she could feel the bile burning at the back of her throat.

Both vomit and sleep were incoming, and she really wasn't sure which one was going to make an appearance, first.

Erik nodded again, "You did just come from the doctor's. I dunno know what happened, but it freaked the hell out of my sister. Um... Look, I know you two might have hit it off... But... Wendy's not as tough as she seems."

"Are you telling me to stay away from her?" Kelly said in surprise.

"Um... Kinda, yeah."

She rubbed her face, "Because of... Wheelchair stuff?"

"Pretty much. And that she actually told you about that, makes me even more worried." Erik sounded protective and frustrated. "I used to come home from work and find her crying and with a sprained ankle or wrist from trying to walk on her own. That's why we opened the tea shop. So she could wheel around in the garden, and be part of something bigger than just herself. Get her out of her head."

"I made her cry. I put her back inside her head." Kelly understood where he was coming from. She was a poison pill to everyone around her. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't theirs, but it was still a thing.

He sighed, "I know I'm being a jerk."

"Already tried to distance myself from your sister. It made her decide to have a game's night with me." Kelly replied stiffly, "In the end, it's her choice. I'm not going to just cut contact. Call me a bitch if you want, but I just don't have the energy for family drama. Wendy isn't going into things blind."

Erik shrugged, "Mmm. Enough of all that. Almost at your place, anyways. Not trying to make you feel unwelcome, or anything. Need any help, once we get there? Make a drink as you crash for five minutes or something?"

"That was one of the worst segues ever." Kelly snorted, "But no, I don't think you're a bastard. Life's got life things in it. I'll be fine, and won't hate you. Just dump me at the door."

"Wendy may have threatened to feed me, my own nuts, if I don't make sure you get safely to bed." He actually sounded afraid.

She rolled her eyes, completely unsurprised.

The jeep turned abruptly, and jerked to a stop on an uphill driveway in an even rougher manner. Erik really couldn't drive.

However, he was a gentleman. He jumped out of the car and half-ran to her side, so that he could hold out a hand to help her get down. A hand that she didn't want to take, but did only because her knees felt like they were about to give out altogether.

Kelly sighed and pulled a key from her handbag. It was just the one key, with a little plastic dog tag. She had sort of thrown her other keys away, when she'd left home. Tossing those into the Murray had been catharctic.

However, it meant she didn't have any cute little keychain to hang off her new and lonesome key.

She walked up the steep incline, and wondered if she'd chosen the wrong small town to run away to. She had no idea how she'd be able to hack this, every single day. Too much uphill.

The key was new and took a little fumbling before it slid into the lock, but the minute that it hit home, a loud bark came from somewhere inside and she heard the scramble of paws on wood.

Kelly grinned as she opened the door, "Loki!"

He sprang up at her, delicately holding his paws back as he knew he wasn't allowed to jump on her, and then broke a different rule by licking from her chin to her forehead.

She spluttered, as she laughed, "Down boy!"

The pup dropped down, and then shot past her. Kelly didn't get time to issue a warning before Loki knocked Erik flat. Paws locked behind the man's head, as a frantic tongue laid out as many sloppy kisses as it could, before the inevitable punishment.

"Loki!" Kelly barked commandingly, and pointed inside.

The pup gave the bewildered victim one last lick before bounding inside. Kelly sighed and looked down, "I'd offer to help you stand up, but..."

"Doctor stuff." Erik said understandingly as he crawled back onto his feet. "Don't tell Wendy about your dog. She adores dogs, but... Getting knocked over..."

"Personal nightmare for you." Kelly nodded, "Sorry, she already knows. And might have mentioned she loves dogs. Don't worry, Loki's just in a tizzy because he hasn't had me around and it's a new place."

Erik gave a tired sigh and tried to wipe his face on his sleeve.

She shrugged and stepped inside, "Come on, I've got a facewasher around here, somewhere. And you won't have to lie to your sister about seeing me home... Properly."

"Thanks."

Kelly walked directly into a combined lounge and kitchen. The back of the loungeroom was connected to a semi-detached kitchen. Not quite open plan, but you could see most of everything. A real seventies feel of things.

She found her kitchen-marked boxes were in the right place, and tore the tape off the top of one. Pulling out a cloth from on top, where she'd packed it, and tossed it towards him. "I dunno if the water's on yet, but give it a shot."

"You're an easy going one, aren't you?" Erik said with surprise, before further conversation was temporarily blocked by the banging of pipes. The water sprayed yellow for a couple minutes, as well.

Eventually, it went clear and Erik soaked the cloth, before turning the tap off and opening the awkward air between the two of them.

Kelly leaned backwards against the bench. Not to look relaxed - she was doing it because she could feel the muscles in her legs beginning to tremble. She still wasn't recovered from collapsing earlier, and she should probably be heading straight to bed. Not standing around to assuage the fears of an overprotective brother.

Loki, for his part, was poking his head around the corner and into the kitchen. His training preventing him from entering the cooking space, but his overprotective nature fully engaged. The pup had noticed just how weak she was feeling.

As the dog's ears twitched back and forth, and he turned his head a full ninety degrees sideways, Erik recovered enough of his hearing to continue. "Letting a total stranger into your house. Walking home for a game night, with another."

Kelly sighed heavily, "That wasn't me... Not even six months ago. I'm... Shy. I'd invited a total of one date back to my house. And I had been hoping to marry that gal, before everything went to shit."

"Not going to ask. But... Is that shit going to burn my sister?" Erik was stuck in overprotective bear mode.

She groaned, "Look, your sister knows some stuff. Things I am not well enough to go into, right now. She doesn't know everything. If you want to try burning the friendship to the ground, that girlfriend of mine? That was nine years ago, and I've had nothing since. But, what I didn't tell Wendy, was that Lucy and I wanted to get married."

"Nine years. Wendy's not going to take one near-marriage in your past as any kind of disincentive." Erik said flatly, and then sighed and shrugged, "Fine. Fine. I've been enough of a jerk. You feeling right, now?"

"Nope. Not even a little." She replied honestly.

He winced, "I was about to say I was going to leave..."

"Leave. I'll get myself to bed." Kelly stated firmly, "Sooner, would be better. And promise your sister that I don't hate her."

He hesitated, flicking back his blonde hair nervously, thinking it over. Erik unexpectedly showing that he didn't completely hate her guts, and did actually have compassion for a random stranger who had dragged a hellfire of stress into his life.

She nodded back towards the door, "I'll be fine. I've got Loki, just waiting to help me into bed. Go."

"Compromise... I know it'll sound weird but... Text me?" Erik asked, half-nervous.

Kelly rolled her eyes, but nodded. He pulled out his phone, and she went to tell him the number, when the memory just... Wasn't there. It almost felt like her brain reached out, and then suddenly fell off a cliff. Left her dizzy, and blinking.

She mumbled something unintelligible, and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Quickly going into the settings to pull up her number. Pretending she just didn't know it, as she read it aloud to him.

Kelly's skin puckered as if she'd stepped into a cold shower, halfway through reading out the number. Followed immediately by roving waves of fire ants biting directly into the nerves beneath the surface of the skin. One of her cheeks pulled up and in, tighter than was comfortable.

"Thanks." Erik stated, firing a text of his own to her phone, so that she had his number. He didn't seem to notice her right eye playing up, turning and heading out of the kitchen, and then the front door.

It took Kelly long enough to force herself to walk, that by the time she'd followed to the door, his car was long gone. She made sure everything was shut and locked, before turning to head to her own bedroom.

Instead, she ended up on her knees, vomiting.

Loki rubbed his head into her side, whining, as he watched her helplessly.

---

Kelly felt her eyes roll in exhaustion as she forced them to open.

Slimy phlegm threatened to fall backwards off her swollen and somehow dry tongue, and make her choke on it. However, it wasn't the foremost thing on her mind, somehow.

She rolled onto her side, coughing weakly and reaching blindly out for her buzzing phone. She put the devil of a device to her ear and croaked weakly, "Kel... Kelly speaking."

"Erik. Checking in. You didn't text me last night. Did you make it to bed, alright?"

She stared at the bed surrounding her in surprise, unable to remember actually getting to it. Her last memory was collapsing, after throwing up. She must have got up, at some stage. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. You woke me up."

"It's past lunchtime."

Kelly was not in the mood for having that conversation. Exhaustion was part and parcel to her new life. Sometimes the fatigue just came along and ate a day or two of the two hundred or so days she had left in this cursed world.

"So? I'm a florist, not a chef." She said snappily.

"Well, you're alive." Erik said defensively, "That's all I was checking in on. Oh, and Wendy seems less shook up, today. Doesn't seem to hold a grudge against you for cancelling the game night, or whatever."

Kelly groaned and tried to sit up, and failed. "God, I really owe her an apology. Did not tell her to go away, nicely. Thanks for the check-in. It's... Appreciated. Even if I am a bitch."

"I'll let you get back to sleep."

They exchanged an awkward goodbye, and then Kelly's arm dropped and her phone hit the floor.

Almost immediately, her bedroom door was tossed wide open, and the dog came bounding in. He whined and licked at the fingers lying on the floor anxiously. Guilt hit, and Kelly forced herself to roll out of bed.

She did have an autofeeder for the pup, exactly for this reason. However, that was still in one of the boxes lying around the house. So instead she stumbled about, got confused once or twice, until Loki got the hint and ran over to a particular box and pawed at it.

Kelly ripped the tape off loudly, and popped open the top of the loud plastic bag, before pulling up a cup full of dry food. It was only at that point she realised she didn't have a dog bowl to put it in.

"I officially hate myself, today." She said apologetically to Loki, as she signalled for him to sit. She put the food right on the floor, causing the dog to look at her in absolute bewilderment.

Not that he hesitated once she signalled release.

Then, she found a seat. A stool that was still bubble-wrapped even as she sat down on it, and tried to piece her brain back together. Kelly closed her eyes, counted down from ten to try and centre things. Taking more than one attempt.

Kelly continued the memory exercises. "Sunflower. Helianthus annuus. The annual sunflower. Heart shaped leaves. Love and life, symbolised in Ukraine's national flower."

Loki finished chasing his scattering food, and dropped his head over her knee. Looking up at her with big and concerned eyes. She gave him a quick and distracted pat, and continued. "Oceanid was abandoned by Helios, but because she never fell out of love like he did, she ended up turning into a sunflower. Oceanid was a... A... Fuck. Succubus? Nymph? I don't think she was human..."

She told herself a dozen facts about sunflowers, every morning. And each morning she was remembering fewer and fewer of them. It wasn't that the memories were gone, they were just locked. She'd lost her keys, and repetition was supposed to be one of the ways to find them, again.

Kelly knew what this was, of course.

Yesterday, she'd mostly had a good day, until she crashed from doing too much. So today, she was going to be burnt. Memory was going to be crap. She was probably going to drop things. She'd find it too hard to think or work, but she also wouldn't be able to lose herself in TV or movies.

The brain buzzed in a fatigue like this one. Most thoughts could turn to dust before she even reached the end of them. If she hadn't screwed up her introduction to a tiny town the day before, she'd head right back to bed, and probably cry herself to sleep.

Kelly had no idea how to accomplish anything today.

She went and found her phone, again. Then pulled open her notetaking app, and stared as she found a series of notes she'd written last night to herself. Still zero memories surfacing, from after throwing up. Especially not taking the time to write to herself.

"Rule One. Here to play matchmaking florist, not fall in love. No relationships. Wendy is amazing, so keep your fucking hands to yourself and don't ruin her life."

"Next, fuck up Valentine's Day. Pick a fight with the local council and get in the news. Let everyone know they can get flowers, and advice, with one big public thing."

"Rule Two. Stop telling every fucking person that you're sick. Your family are brainwashing assholes. Feel free to cry on a shoulder about that. Being bi and out is fine. Being cancer and out, is being a bitch. They're strangers. They don't need your impending Krakatoa."

"First harvest, sunflowers. It'll need some precise greenhouse stuff. Find a tradie place to build some indoor boxes. Also need watering stuff, timers, piping, moisture meters."

"Buy some roses from Wendy, too. She probably has them for petal tea. For Valentine's Day. If you flirt, you're being cruel. Wendy can't even spend a year with you. Don't ruin the rest of her life, just because she's the cutest and sexiest thing you've met in years."

"Rule Three. Home before shop. If setting up home takes too long and I miss Valentine's, so it is. Home needs setting up first, but I got crap all strength left... Erik would probably be willing to help... But probably don't want to go down that route unless absolutely necessary."

Kelly put her phone down, and gave a yawn. She could not remember a word of any of the notes that she'd just read. She knew it was important, and about her plans for the future.

She'd try and read it again, tomorrow.

The florist rubbed her face tiredly, and then looked at the back of her hand in frustration. Wasn't her nose bleeding. Just one of her eyes. Damn thing had done it every time she got tired or stressed, or the weather changed... Or the clouds were the wrong shape.

Loki gave a little whine and pushed his head down onto her knee, a little bit more firmly. She gave a tired smile, and stood up, patting him as she did. "You're right. It's time we went for a walk. The air will do us both some good. Let me just find your lead."

---

It took Kelly until she'd gone around the block twice, and returned home, to realise she was still wearing her outfit from the day before.

Jeans might not dirty easily, but she still preferred to wear clean clothes, every day. Especially with all the crap that came out of her body, whenever she started to feel like it was starting to behave.

She dumped her pants beside a box, and tossed her t-shirt as well. Then found that the box she'd chosen only had sundresses. Outside had been a little cold for that, but she was probably just going to drop onto the couch and scroll endlessly through some TV and find nothing.

Kelly took a yellow sundress, decorated with a series of orange flower patterning, and headed towards the shower.

Loki found a spare space in the loungeroom to lie down in. Choosing something within sight of both the hallway and the couch. She needed to remember to find his bed.

She pushed open the door and took a first look at her new bathroom. The online advert had only a single photo, so she hadn't been entirely sure about it. The bathroom was basic. White countertops that had one or two chips in the edging. No breathing room between sink or shower.

Kelly folded and dropped her dress onto the edge of the sink, and then reached by the non-existent curtain to turn on the shower. The pipes shuddered painfully, and then gross water began to spray at the floor.

Right as she was panicking that should have found a towel to put down, or even found a towel, she heard the doorbell for the front door go off. She flicked an irritated hand through her hair, and quickly made her way down the hall. Instantly regretting it, as the dizzyness came back with a vengeance.

She stumbled, putting one hand onto the doorframe to catch herself, as she got to the front door. Kelly bit back a groan, as she dropped her hand heavily onto the knob, and pulled her door open.

The tall blonde silhouetted in the midday sun stared at her, eyes going wide in surprise.

Kelly looked at him in surprise, "What the hell are you doing here, Erik? I said I was fine. You don't need to intimidate me into leaving Wendy alone. A girl can take a hint."