Loft Apartment -- Chinatown

     This room has an impression of space given more by the lack of
furniture than any real claim to size. The comfortable scents of old wood,
paint and drying herbs are in the air. A broad window lets in the light,
with thick green curtains that can be easily pulled across to block out
the world. Several plant boxes are visible on the sill outside.
     One corner of the room holds an easel and paints, while another has a
dresser and a slightly-faded futon bed. The kitchen appliances are nearly
antiques, as are the old, rough-hewn table and chairs. Bundles of herbs
hang from the walls, along with several watercolours of peaceful wildlife
scenes.
     Between two doors on the far wall is an old stone fireplace, complete
with small stack of wood, and comfortable if tattered armchair. Across the
room from the fireplace, a sturdy wooden railing prevents anyone from
falling down the stairs which come up from the street. The entire room has
a warm and welcoming aura.

It's late. It's really entirely too late for decent visitors, and Kitty
should be ashamed of herself. The light above the chemist is just barely
visible, the flickering of a fire that's running down to the embers. Liam
has wood again. The street is empty and quiet and cold.

Yes, well, the person Kitty's here on behalf of has nothing to do with
decency. Kitty checks for light first: it's /important/, but it's not
/urgent/. That is, the patient's condition doesn't seem to be
deteriorating, and in some ways she'd almost like to have an excuse to let
him wait till morning. But no, the angel's likely to be awake. The tapping
at his door is quiet anyhow, along with her call. "Liam? 'S Kitty." Might
as well let him know that if he /is/ awake, he still doesn't have to make
it all the way down the stairs.

Liam is awake. Barely. Sort of. He's trained himself, at any rate, to wake
at tappings from below -- the life of a street healer tends to lead to
late-night emergencies. It's a moment before he calls down. ".... Kitty?"
Pause. "C'mon up." Not needing to open the door is a plus. The angel gets
up from his comfy armchair and moves to the top of the railing, rubbing at
his eyes before peering concernedly down the stairs. "Everythin' alright?"

Kitty checks the street over her shoulder casually, waits for some traffic
to pass, and ducks through the door to jog up the stairs. She's looking
pretty lack-of-sleep herself: longish curly hair /shows/ when it hasn't
had a brush or comb taken to it lately. "I wish," she says resignedly.
"Coma case turned up. I /hate/ bothering you about it, given who the guy
is and that he was probably practically /asking/ for it - we found him in
the middle of some kind of occult setup in his living room, pentacle and
candles and everything." She tips her head back up to meet his eyes with a
wry look. "Feel /free/ to mutter, go back to bed, and tell me to go look
for somebody else to handle it. Please." She'd halfway love the excuse.

Kitty talks too fast for this hour of the night. Liam blinks down at her,
slowly, while he processes. "Ah... alright, hang on. Let me get my coat."
Which is over one of the kitchen chairs. He limps for it and picks it up,
folding his wings close to his back as he shrugs into the black fabric.
OK. Awake now. "Symptoms?"

Kitty gets talky when she hasn't slept. Or when she's stressed. Or
nervous. Or ... Kitty gets talky a lot, really. "Breathing and pulse
shallow but steady. He doesn't react when touched or moved. His eyes
respond to light normally, but don't track. No obvious injuries - no
bleeding, no broken bones, no visible bruising. No scent of alcohol or
obvious injection marks." She pauses. "His condition doesn't seem to be
deteriorating - it might wait till morning." Let you get some /sleep/.
"Particularly since, uh, well." And now the merely wry expression has gone
all the way to self-disgusted. "It's John Constantine."

"Keep runnin' into that name. Haven't met the bloke." Liam moves into the
kitchen, and gets out a few small plastic bags, sorting through his herb
jars. Deft fingers picking and choosing. Right. Constantine. The one whose
singing sent Lorne on a drinking binge. "Not a good sort?"

"Define 'good' in this context," Kitty replies resignedly. "He's a
bastard, but sort of ... almost a necessary one. Which makes no sense, but
I haven't had enough coffee to make sense. In case you hadn't noticed."
She pauses. "And, one more warning in advance since you'll probably notice
anyway - apparently he got a transfusion of demon blood at some point, and
I'm not talking the Lorne-type, either. /Don't/ ask me why or where or
how, I don't know and I don't want to, just - didn't want it to take you
by surprise."

"... alright." Demon blood. Sure. Liam finishes gathering his supplies,
tucks them inside one of his massive pockets, and turns to shoot a look at
Kitty. "/You/ alright? Need food? Drink? Y'look tired, lass." He is, of
course, one to talk.

Kitty waves a hand. "Fine, fine." She flashes a quick grin. "I'm /used/ to
running like this. I'll just crash early tonight." Like around two in the
afternoon, if she has anything to say about it.

Liam makes a disapproving sound and gathers his cane, heading for the
stairs. A glance at the fire but it's mostly burned down now, he
apparently isn't too worried about leaving it. "Daft. Where're we goin'?"

"Yeah, but it keeps me out of trouble. Place on the Main Stretch called
Kakono's." Kitty's closer; she heads down first and gets the door. "Not
too far at all."



Constantine's Apartment -- The Kakono's Building

Kitty does not, thankfully, take Liam in her way: she steps through the
door and then unlocks and opens it from the inside. No freaking the -
okay, a /minimum/ of freaking the angel.

It's so interesting when Kitty does that. Liam has a feathered eyebrow
raised when the hacker girl opens the door; leaning on his cane, he moves
inside cautiously, navy eyes glancing around. Not that he doesn't trust
Kitty, but, new environment.

The scene that meets Kitty and Liam is not quite as shocking as the one
that Jack found. The strange scent of the incense still hangs heavy in the
air, even now, and the pentacle and circle still mark the floor around the
inexplicable metal bowl of water. But Constantine is no longer crumpled in
a pathetic heap on the floor next to it all. Now he's lying there
peacefully, with a blanket tucked around him. He still seems free of any
blood, save the twin trickles of it that have dried at the corners of his
mouth. The damage is all inside.

It's an improvement. Sort of. Kitty steps over, careful of the lines of
pentacle and circle, and nudges Constantine's leg lightly with a toe. "No
idea /what/ he was trying to do," she says aloud, shaking her head.

Nudging the guy's leg with a toe earns Kitty a slightly pained look from
the healer. Liam takes in the paraphernalia with a quick look, but doesn't
really react to it, as his attention shifts to Constantine and holds
there. The angel picks his own way over the symbols, though he won't pay
them much mind if he needs to disturb them to kneel next to the fallen
man. Who seems to be breathing alright. "How long's it been?" He sets the
cane down beside himself and adjusts the bad leg a little more comfortably
before reaching tentative fingers to Constantine's skin. Reaching.
Sensing. What's wrong here?

She's /behaving/, darnit, she hasn't given in to the urge to kick him
/once/. Or to festoon him with plastic jellyfish. Nonetheless, she
withdraws her foot somewhat guiltily. "I got the call about it about half
an hour ago - Jack was the one who found him. We don't know how long he
was just lying there. Jack moved him a little and got the blanket, he was
worried about the cold." She pauses. "The last time /I/ saw him was a few
days ago, but it clearly can't've been that long. Probably a few hours at
most."

Constantine seems to have very little wrong with him physically. Well,
okay, besides the obvious facts of an abused liver and lungs filled with
enough tar to repave every road in New Jersey (for California, Holmes and
Jack would need to contribute too). There might have been a little bit of
internal bleeding earlier, but it's stopped now--if it was ever there, it
was brief and healed on its own. But something's driven his consciousness
into the furthest recesses of his brain. He's probably lucky it didn't
blast his mind away completely--whatever it was.

"Hmm," says Liam. He doesn't reach for his herbs, only keeps his fingers
on Constantine, soft light blooming in the angel's eyes. Little sparks.
When he speaks to Kitty, his voice is absent. "Heard Mr. Celliers had an
interestin' run-in with Lorne." He's fixing the liver. He's fixing the
liver, and clearing out those lungs -- gently loosening debris. Once he
starts moving around again, Constantine's going to be coughing gunk for a
week. Liam looks disapproving, of the mage or Jack or both. Blue eyes
intently somewhere else. Another part of his power, reaching, soft streams
of love and hope and peace and safety. Looking for Constantine.

Like stars. Amazing. Kitty crouches on the far side of Constantine from
the healer, balancing herself lightly with the fingertips of one hand on
the floor. The other hand drapes lightly over her knee. "Yeah. Jack's ...
amazingly apologetic over it. He isn't sure it was entirely /him/ talking,
either." She presumes he's heard enough of the other side to understand
that. "Poor Lorne. If I'd known that was going to happen..."

Of course, when this is all over, John will keep right on smoking. But
hey, at least he'll have to admit that angels are good for *something*.
His mind, his self, remains elusive. Was that the tiniest flicker of
awareness, of interest in the world? Yes, it was, but the spark of self is
still wary, still too devastated to trust the world outside his head so
easily.

Liam's light is gentle, welcoming. The calm of a first spring day, the
love of a new mother, the peace before the world began. All coaxing
comfort. Everything is safe, here. Everything is warm and beautiful and
alright. Hints of heaven from the angel's touch, and the soft glow spreads
from his eyes to run over his skin. Shining in the dim apartment. "Aye,"
murmurs Liam to Kitty, his response a bit belated. "I know. Weren't your
fault. An' I think he's alright."

Because the angel is, oh, just a /little/ bit distracted. "Yeah. I checked
on him. too - if he isn't now, he will be." Resilient Host. And oh, that's
beautiful. Kitty keeps her voice quiet, her hands back and away from the
two of them. Last chance to maim Constantine? She'll just have to pass
that up. See, it's safe.

Peace, warmth, light--the half-aware core of John Constantine knows he
wants these things in some deep, unspoken way. He's been drowning all his
life, and they're air. Fear holds out for another few moments, the terror
that once he surfaces it'll all turn out to be a hallucination, or worse,
a trick, and he'll be flung back into the horror that sent him into
hiding. Then, hesitantly, he begins to surface, picking up shreds of
memory and knowledge along the way.

Liam's light is spilling on Kitty, soft and subtle, and he knows she
doesn't like peace so he's trying to tailor that, too. Strength, clarity,
hope. The peace is all for Constantine, the angel moving to cocoon the
man's spirit in love. Comfort. All is well, it's gone now, you are safe
and wanted and you can return. You should return. The shining light is
this way. Concentrating on too many things at once, now, Liam doesn't
answer Kitty.

Clarity. That's something Kitty's been needing for a while now - and the
thoughts it produces prompt her to silence, too. Just waiting, not
impatient, not even distracted. Aware. Quiet. Calm.

As he nears consciousness, flickering up through the layers of his mind,
Constantine realizes that something's not right here. It's obvious enough
what happened, but it's definitely not what he expected. He opens his eyes
and stares up at Liam, dazed. "Heaven? I'm in *Heaven*? There must have
been a mistake."

That gets a faint, quirking smile from the angel -- he doesn't quite meet
Constantine's gaze, he's still looking /through/ the man to something
within. "Not yet, lad. This's the land of the livin'." He doesn't chop
everything off, but Liam begins to let his power ebb, peace lingering
subtle and safe and pleasant as the glow dies from his skin. There are
still stars in his eyes, tinting them sapphire and jewelled.

Kitty murmurs from the other side, "Sorry to disappoint you," and the
amusement in that is probably lighter and warmer than anything
Constantine's ever heard from her; there's no edge or mockery or
bitterness or even /irritation/ in it at all. It's next thing to /fond/,
for - er - Heaven's sake.

Constantine blinks a few times. Then he says, "Oh." He smiles, and the
expression is very nearly sweet. "Are you sure? Kitty doesn't sound
annoyed with me." He has the vague feeling that there is something
terribly wrong, but at the moment, he feels too good to care.

"Don't know about that," murmurs Liam, "but if it's important, give her
five minutes an' I'm sure she can work up to it." Checking. Testing.
Little bits of power. Everything's OK now, right? And presuming so, the
angel will remove his hand and lean back, closing his eyes for a moment or
two. There. Done. The peace will linger -- ascent to the cold cruel world
is a gradual thing.

Kitty keeps her laugh quick and quiet and small, not intrusive. "You're
still," she tells Constantine almost affectionately, "a colossal idiot.
There, is that better?" She glances back and forth between his face and
Liam's - no telling how difficult that was for the healer.

After a moment, Constantine sits up. He stares at the setup for the spell,
memory starting to trickle back to him. After several seconds, he turns
back to Liam. "Thanks, mate," he says simply. He's not quite himself, not
while that feeling still lingers--far too nice, too quiet and wistful.
"Yeah, love, that's much better. Now I know you're the real Kitty."

"Welcome," replies Liam, just as simply, and when he opens his eyes again
they are navy and dark. A little paler than when he came in, but not much
-- that wasn't so bad, as such things go. He catches one of Kitty's
glances and flashes her a reassuring smile.

Not an exhausted and strained angel. Oh, oh good. Kitty flashes the smile
back to Liam, almost a mirror, and fishes absently for her cellphone.
Pockets, she has pockets. "Rarely imitated, never duplicated. Which is
probably a good thing all round." To Liam more directly, she adds an
echoed, "Thanks."

"Claire," Constantine says suddenly, standing up. "It was about Claire."
The memory dislodges a tight knot of dread from beneath the feeling of
heaven. "I tried to divine as much as I could about her," he says slowly.
"It was a powerful spell..." Oops. Heaven is starting to slip away now.
John fishes around in his own pockets for his cigarettes and a lighter. He
finds them both, lights one of the former, and starts to inhale the awful
smoke. A spasm of coughing grabs him then, and he nearly doubles over. The
stuff that spatters all over the pentagram and circle is best left
undescribed.

Oh. Right. "Cleaned out your lungs," says Liam, mildly. "Sorry for not
askin', only I expect they'd've been turnin' on you soon." Fishing in a
pocket, he removes two plastic bags of herbs, eyes them, then selects one
and holds it out to Constantine. "Tea'll be good with the coughin'. You
can expect that'll be comin' up for a week or so."

The advantage of crouching is that standing up is amazingly quick -
Kitty's on her feet and reaching out to steady John. One arm around him,
the other hand helping balance, and an expression that does not need to
say '/augh/ that is /gross/' out loud. "John," she says after a moment
with a slight sigh, "she sees /everything/." She'd add 'that probably
wasn't too bright of an idea,' but given what he just spat on the floor,
he's getting punishment enough out of this.

They probably would have. "Oh," John says. He takes the bag of herbs.
"Thanks for that, too," he adds after a moment, still looking thoughtfully
at Liam. Suddenly he laughs. "Wait till I tell Brendan Finn that the only
angel in Beacon Harbor worth the air he uses up is Irish." He hasn't seen
any wings, but after that taste of Heaven Liam gave him, John can't
imagine that he's anything but an angel. "Yeah," he tells Kitty, voice and
expression as close to sheepish as he'll allow himself to get, "I know."
His eyes go distant. "There was something else--bloody hell. Her
*daughter*..." Something terrible happened, and it was his fault. Old
guilt rises up in him.

Liam reaches for his cane, and rises carefully -- the wings are just
barely perceptible if one is looking for them, shifting beneath the
massive coat as the angel strives for balance from the floor. Leaning, he
runs a hand through his hair and watches.

Clarity lingers: Kitty's connection of what John just said is practically
visible, linking it back to something else she's heard or known, a sudden
understanding. One of her hands still lingers on John's arm, ready to
provide support if he needs it again. "Constantine. What happened?"
Perfectly calm, perfectly reasonable, /not/ the usual peremptory tones of
either 'I know already you're not going to tell me' or 'tell me or I'll
beat your head in with this chair.'

Constantine takes a deep breath, or tries to; in a flash he's bent over
again, coughing up twenty years' worth of self-pollution. In the midst of
this, memory comes back to him. When he straightens up, there's more pain
in his eyes than the coughing fit can account for. "I cast a spell, and I
was drawn into Claire's mind. Into her life. I saw her memories. I saw how
she had her child. Faith." He goes silent a moment. "Thirteen years ago.
She's out on the streets now, a runaway." His voice catches. "*Was* out on
the streets. Something out there knew I'd done the spell, knew I'd be able
to find Faith and bring her back to Claire." His voice is steady once
more. "And it couldn't let Claire have anyone that close to her. So it
took Faith to her death, guided her to the middle of the road in front of
a car." His tone doesn't change. "I killed her."

Psychics and visions are, for the most part, beyond Liam, despite his
habit of hanging around a certain green karaoke demon. Nevertheless,
Constantine's words are enough to bring a wince to the angel's features.
Silent.

Kitty says, in those same, reasonable tones, "Bullshit." Pause. "Sorry,'
she adds toward Liam, a touch sheepish for a moment. "But it was /not/
your fault. That thing out there is responsible. The driver might be
responsible, if it didn't possess him, too." Too? "But /you/ are not. This
time, anyway." She glances aside to Constantine more sharply - incisive,
rather than accusing. "It's trying to get at us. Don't give it an easy way
in. It probably would've tried for her in a few weeks anyway; if it thinks
/we're/ a threat, /she/ would've had to be on the list. Put the blame
where it belongs, John."

"Too?" Even just after waking up from a coma, Constantine is entirely too
perceptive. "It's done things like this before?" There's a nasty glitter
in his eyes. "How much *do* you know about this?" He sounds vaguely
annoyed that Kitty knows more than he does. That's just not right! He does
not, however, say anything about the guilt, and what he's going to do with
it. That's his private matter.

Liam is mostly managing to follow the conversation, though he has a
vaguely guilty feeling about it -- as though it seems a bit private, and
possibly he shouldn't be listening. Kitty's apologetic look is met with
bemusement. What?

She swore! In front of the angel! Bad her. "Jack went to Caritas a couple
of days ago," Kitty answers. "Something possessed the Host and tried to
screw with his head. Tried to convince him to give up looking for the
tower he's been dreaming about, maybe to kill himself. I think it was the
same thing. Particularly since we picked up evidence the tower might be
linked to the whole situation Claire's been trying to tell us about." She
flashes a glance back at Liam. Yeah, the same Jack. "/Did/ you stay home
on Saturday?" she adds to the angel, eyebrows up.

<OOC> Liam says "Guys, I gotta go. You're welcome to continue... say Liam
was tired and excused himself, making Kitty promise to explain everything
later. And he didn't stay home on Saturday, he saved a guy's life. Figures
Claire was worried about the knife that got thrown at him. Or the gun that
was shot at him. Or... stuff. He'll gloss over that. ;)"

"A tower," Constantine says, his words very measured. "I was the first one
pulled in, when Sera broke, and I saw a tower..." And he has suspicions.
Little hints dropped in old tomes, reverent mentions that would have been
whispers had they been spoken... "Tell me everything."

"A tower in a field of roses," Kitty says quietly. "I saw the roses just
at the end, when we were all waking up. And Claire showed us the tower,
just for an instant, when Jack found her after Caritas... and Jack dreamed
about a stained-glass window, with the tower in the center, and the
black-winged angels from Claire's drawing on one side, and the lot of us
on the other." She takes a breath. "When the Host was possessed - he
talked about the roses, too. He said Jack would never find the tower if he
kept looking off the path. He said the beams were breaking, the tower was
going to fall; that Jack could never find it in the first place, and if he
could, he wouldn't have any idea what to do, and if he had any idea, he
couldn't do it anyway. He said," and now she's almost quoting, "'you dream
of the roses, but you can't reach out and take them, you won't even try.
And they all fall, one by one, and there's nobody left by the time the
tower comes down. You're all going to be too late. You'll never find it.
Curl up and wait for the end because it's all you can do.'" Her mouth
pulls to one side, in something like a smile. "This thing is all about
despair. It's so much easier to beat people if it can convince them to do
the work /for/ it. Barring that, it'll happily try to kill us instead."

Constantine listens to this, perfectly still, forgetting even to smoke. "I
remember it. And I've read of it--only briefly, only in passing mentions,
because it's too important to be written of." He smiles humorlessly. "And
if even magicians can understand that it should be left alone, then it's
probably impossibly crucial to the world." Or worlds.

"All the things Claire's warning us about," Kitty replies, "most of the
things she's seeing - things are falling apart. Not all, it can still be
put right, but most. Yeah." She tosses her head a little, shaking hair
back out of her eyes. "She showed me and Jack - a lot, that night. I
couldn't make sense of half of it. I couldn't even /look/ half the time. I
remember most of what she said, though. And it - she was -" She shivers,
just a little. "She was bleeding, John. From her hands. It turned into
rose petals." And then she hesitates, glancing up at him, uncertain for a
moment.

Constantine shudders. Then, steadying himself (he suddenly remembers his
cigarette, and takes a drag off of it), he closes his eyes and says, "When
I started the spell, the water in the bowl seemed to turn to blood, and
there was a black feather in it." It's his turn to tell now. "Then the
blood turned to one of those red balloons and started to rise. For a
moment, there were other things in the bowl--a long black braid, a gold
wedding band. The balloon burst, spraying blood everywhere. Then I saw
Claire, and heard a baby crying. And then I was in Claire's memory." He
opens his eyes, and emotion--fury--returns to his face. "The things they
did to her." He goes distant again for a moment. "I saw that strange
little girl, the red balloons, a broken pocket watch..." He regains his
hold on his anger, uses it to focus himself. "There was a doctor,
Jefferson Merrick, who seduced her, brainwashed her. Then he killed six of
his patients and himself." He takes a deep breath, which sends him into
another fit of disgusting coughing. He must have known that would happen.
Maybe he did it on purpose, so he wouldn't have to go on for another few
seconds.

Kitty's just listening at first, and while her expression doesn't change
to match John's, something of a matching anger glitters in her eyes. It's
held back. Then again, it's easier for her. She only has guesses about the
things that happened to Claire, not confirmation. Certainly not
/experience/. The coughing fit at least gets her to move - supporting him
again, letting him reserve energy for bringing up ... /whatever/ that
blackish ... stuff is. She trusts Liam enough that she's fairly sure it's
not actually parts of his lungs. Fairly. Not a word spoken. Not yet.

Soon enough Constantine has control of himself again. Now he has to go on.
Carefully not taking a deep breath this time, he continues, "Then I went
further into Claire's mind, saw everything she saw. I held on for a few
seconds, then lost control. It was long enough. One of the things I saw
was a thirteen-year-old girl coming down the street near the alley Claire
was in. Her daughter. Faith. As the car came toward Faith, Claire tried to
reach her. For a moment, I saw the little girl with the red balloon behind
Claire; she ran out of one wall and into the other and was gone. Then the
car hit. Faith died instantly; the car kept going." He takes a shaky
breath, careful to keep it relatively shallow. "If anything happened after
that, I was too far gone to know."

Kitty's silent for a moment. Thinking. "I'm getting," she says absently,
"a certain sympathy - about car crashes." Shadows in her expression for a
moment, then banished again as she shakes her head and looks up to John
again. "In the drawing, Claire's. The black-winged figures were taking
something away with them. I asked her about it, what they were looking
for. She said - roses. And the heart of an angel. She said that it
wouldn't be where we thought. Then something about a beach, and the dream
back in May - and then she started falling apart for a minute, and when
she got herself back together, she was talking to you. I don't know - when
the context changed. Or /if/ it did."

Constantine frowns very faintly, for the most part too absorbed in thought
to make much of an expression. "What was she say..." He trails off, some
light switching on behind his eyes. "The heart of an angel?" he asks
softly. "*What did she say*?"

"'Roses, red as heart's blood.'" Kitty's reply is certain. "'And the heart
of an angel, bruised.'" She doesn't need to think about the words. /Those/
twelve she'll probably remember on her deathbed.

"Do you know what the roses are?" Constantine asks. A beat, then, "Did she
say anything about Seravina?"

"I don't know. Just - the field of roses, and the rose petals, and the one
medallion had a rose, didn't it? In the dream." Associating along lines of
symbols. Wonderful. Kitty closes her eyes, thinking. "Not ex - /yes/. A
beach in the dream - 'when she told him to run.' The 'she' could've been
Sera. And she'd just been talking about her a little earlier, before I
asked."

Constantine is staring intently at Kitty now. "There was a point in the
dream, I suppose not long after it started--not that time meant much
there--when Sera told me to run. I ran, and then I was running on a beach.
In the distance was the tower."

Kitty opens her eyes to look at him in return. "The tower. Which is in a
field of roses." And she asks, in all seriousness, "Come close to throwing
anything out a window lately?"

Constantine answers the question as seriously as it was asked. "I don't
think so. But I know what the 'heart of an angel, bruised' is."

"Good," Kitty replies. "/Somebody/ needs to know. Whatever it is, for
pity's sake try to keep it safe."

Hah. "Do you if anyone's tried to hurt Seravina lately?" Constantine asks.
"And what's this about windows?"

"Lately?" Kitty repeats. "I don't know - I talked to Kess on Thanksgiving,
and I know she and Ray were pretty close to giving up, but they weren't
/hurt/. I /do/ know - somebody's likely to try. Soon. I've been - working
on that. I think that one'll be okay." She hopes. "Claire said - 'he
almost threw it through a window, once.' But she might've switched
contexts."

"I'll--" Constantine coughs again, once, twice, three times. Disgusting.
He looks at his cigarette, which has completely burnt down by now, tosses
it into an ashtray, takes out another one, and lights it. "I'll talk to
Sera. Last I knew, she had the heart." Faith is dead, Hope is dead...John
shivers, and not because it's cold in the apartment--although it is.

That /does/ look like it could be part of some internal organ. Presuming
that the blood could clot entirely inside it, but still be glisteni-- EW.
Kitty swallows again, looking away. "I need to, too." Okay, there's the
cynical amusement back, as she adds, "Claire might shoot me /herself/ if
anything happened to Sera because I missed the appointment."

"Yeah, but she'd talk about balloons and feathers while doing it,"
Constantine points out. "And probably when she pulled the trigger the
bullet would turn into rose petals." For all that he was trying to help
her, John knows full well that Claire's mind is not exactly level with
reality.

"That's okay. I'm hoping to have Kevlar in time anyway." Kitty quirks
eyebrows at John, with at least a touch of humor. "You better have some of
that tea before you try to talk to Sera. I'm not even going to attempt to
address how unspeakably gross the stuff you're coughing up is."

"Yeah, I'll do that." Constantine looks at the little bag. "Maybe," he
reflects, "I'll mix some whiskey in." That's *also* disgusting. "He's an
Irish angel, I'm sure he'd understand."

Kitty doesn't quite snicker. Mustn't laugh. "Probably. And if you
couldn't, I'm sure he'd've told you. I mean." Kitty lets her eyebrows lift
again. "You didn't think we were keeping the Guinness around for /your/
sake, did you?"

Constantine blinks at Kitty. Then he laughs and just shakes his head.
"Someday my mate Brendan has to meet this bloke."

"Someday maybe he'll get the chance," Kitty returns promptly. She finally
steps away from Constantine, apparently relatively sure he can keep his
balance, and lifts her hands up to rest her fingertips against her closed
eyes. "Can you handle yourself okay from here? I've /got/ to get some
sleep. And call Jack. Not in that order."

"I'll be fine," Constantine assures her. He hesitates a moment, then says,
"Thanks for helping me out." She *could* have told Jack to just leave him
there, after all.

Kitty crooks a little half-grin at him. "What. /Occasionally/ we're on the
same side, right? Temporarily. Besides, Pete would've gotten annoyed." She
lifts a hand, and heads for the door. And phases out through it without
bothering with the lock.