Shorter Days (Open)

[Patch Jacobs]

Patch walked about, watching his breath swirl about in front of his face in the chilled autumn air. The sun had begun to set behind the buildings that created the very essence of New York. Rockafella Center was still, however, buzzing with human activity.

People laughed, friends and couples dancing in and out of shops and bars; Families skated on the ice that had been created and maintained by the invisible staff who managed it. Patch couldn't go inside, not having money enough to spend on the luxury, but he enjoyed watching, pretending he knew how it felt to have people love him.

Burying his hands in his pockets, Patch leaned against the rail, only acknowledging his company with a simple, "Hey."

[Chloe King]

The ice skaters on the rink at the Rockafella centre were hypnotizing. They circled the rink again and again on the sharp blades attached to their shoes. Chloe watched, entranced, as couples tumbled onto the ice, laughing and loving. Something was missing. Someone. A person who would stand and watch with her, then take her out onto the ice. Someone who would skate beside her, laughing with her, pulling her up if she ever fell. He'd been missing for some time now, and the longing for him had become a dull ache that didn't subside. Thinking of him made it grow, bringing silent tears to Chloe's eyes.

Where was he? She had been looking. He was like a misplaced toy; she couldn't quite remember where she left him. The memories of where she'd find him were fuzzy, warped. How would she reach him? How would she get there if she couldn’t remember where there was?

Chloe was drawn from her thoughts by a greeting from the boy beside her. She’d barely noticed him leaning against the railing beside her; she was too lost in her head, trying desperately to figure out how she’d find her way home, wherever home was. She turned her teary hazel eyes, which had somehow managed to keep from turning red in her sadness, to him and blinked. A single tear dripped onto her soft, rosy cheek, and trailed down as she returned his greeting without emotion. "Hello."

He wasn't who she was looking for...but maybe he knew him. He didn’t seem that much older than her; maybe a few years at the most. "Have you seen Jason? I can't find him, I can’t find my brother.” Her voice was empty, except for trace amounts of the confusion and disorientation she felt. She looked lost and tattered, having lived on the streets for a matter of days. She’d been left here by…by them after…after…She couldn’t remember. Something.

And mom? Dad? Where were they? They’d left her and Jason on the steps. The big ones in front of the looming building…”Wait here,” they’d said. “Just wait.” Then they’d left them. Simply drove off into the early morning light in the old silver Volvo with the dented bumper and dangling license plate. They’d turned left on the street, mom craning her neck to look back at them before they turned right onto the highway and disappeared. She and Jason had waited, waited until someone came and took them. Someone named Trisha. That’s when the passing had begun, and they’d been passed from family to family…home...to…home? Was that right? She couldn’t remember.

Help. She needed help. She didn’t know where she was, what time it was, how far from Jason she was. Maybe this boy would offer his assistance…She turned back to him. ”Help me, please,” she said softly, another tear running down her cheek.

[Patch Jacobs]

Patch tilted his head toward the girl, whose empty voice bounced off the empty walls of his mind. She was one of them again - One of the missing persons returned, only not. Great. Patch was starting to feel like he was a magnet, attracting what he'd come to call Dolls. "No, sorry, I don't know a Jason, at all."

He only apologized because he couldn't believe how tiny and frail she seemed to be. Patch hated it when she softly asked his help. Why couldn't he be left in peace, trapped in his own little world of hollowness. With a heavy sigh, Patch asked in a voice as kind as he dared, "I can't help you going on a name like Jason. Tell me who you are ... Even just a last name will do - A better start than Jason."

He leaned his shoulder now against the rail, watching her with keen eyes, searching for the missing child within her clouded eyes.

[Chloe King]

Chloe blinked, her empty eyes gazing at him for a moment as her clouded mind struggled to comprehend his words. He didn’t…know…Jason? But Jason was always there, always with her, always smiling, always strong. He’d been glued to her side since that day on the steps, the day the old silver Volvo with the dented bumper and dangling license plate had turned right onto the highway and disappeared. The day her parents had said, “Wait here. Just wait.” And they’d waited. But this boy didn’t know him, didn’t know what it was like to be away from him. She could barely feel the disappointment in her numbed state of feeling, but it was there nonetheless. She couldn’t find Jason alone, and this boy hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting him. “Oh,” she replied softly, the word fading into the noise from the ice rink. Her gaze drifted dreamily back to the skaters, and for a moment it was as if the boy wasn’t there at all.

He spoke again, a reminder that she truly wasn’t alone. Chloe turned back to him, vaguely sensing the kindness in his words as he asked her to tell him who she was, any name that would be a better start to the search. She opened her mouth to reply, but her mind caught on a snag, and her expression turned to a frown of confusion and concentration. “I am…” Who was she? She couldn’t remember. She used to be somebody, someone, not just another floating entity in the sea of faces. Had something changed? “I’m… Names drifted through her mind like clouds in the sky, disconnected from all other logic. Jason? That wasn’t her. Jason was her brother. He was lost. She couldn’t find the last place she’d seen him. Dad? No, he had told her to wait. Wait on the steps. Mom? She didn’t think so. Mom had craned her neck to look back at them through the window of the old silver Volvo with the dented bumper and dangling license plate. Trisha? No, she’d taken them from the steps, begun the passing from family to family, home to home. Four names remained, connected in pairs, and she wasn’t sure which was her. Danielle Hart…Chloe King…She was neither…or both? She couldn’t remember! Chloe was a pretty name…pretty. She remembered Jason looking at her as he sat beside her on the steps, saying, “It will be okay, Chloe. They’ll come back.” “I believe I am Chloe King…But I can’t remember…Can you?” She looked up to meet his gaze, hoping he could clear up the confusion she felt, a faint plea hidden deep within her hazel eyes.
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~{OOC}~
Anything repeated from the first post is entirely intentional. (; And I'm sure you saw in her app, but Danielle Hart was her character on the Disney Channel. So, in a way, Danielle is her.

[Patch Jacobs]

Patch watched the girl, and it seemed to him as though she were struggling to undo some serious mental knots. That was a first. Patch had come across more and more of these people ... people like the girl before him who were so lost, so empty of everything life held. It was scary, how quickly also that he could determine a druggie from one of them, as if they had become their own sub-race in society. He guessed that would actually make sense, but still ... It was horrible to think of.

"You only believe you are Chloe King?" Patch shook his head, casting his eyes back to the skate rink. How could they be so ignorant? Looking back at Chloe, Patch reached out his hand and asked, "Do you trust me enough to let me help you look through phonebooks? I'm doing nothing else."

Patch waited there, his hand extended and palm face up, giving her the option to take it. He didn't want to be bold and simply take it, because he might freak her out and people would - never mind about the rest of them.

[Chloe King]

Chloe frowned at the boy’s question. She couldn’t be more certain of her name…her brain was clouded nearly every memory had a shadow cast over it by a colossal, unseen, unknown object. Whatever it was had broken Chloe’s mental compass, leaving it spinning uselessly inside her head, turning her in every direction but the one she wanted to go in. She couldn’t fix it on her own; she didn’t know how, and couldn’t calibrate it, having no knowledge of where she was in the first place. She knew only that she had lost Jason, and that she had to wait for something. “I can’t remember,” she repeated, meeting his clear blue eyes with her empty hazel ones. “I may be Chloe King…” Her gaze didn’t falter as she looked up at him, expressionless. “…Or I may be Danielle Hart…” Her voice sounded odd, light, breathy. “…Or I may be nobody at all.” It made sense to Chloe. She may be nobody. Perhaps Chloe and Danielle were out on the ice rink right now, spinning…and spinning…“If I am nobody,” she began, her voice sounding like it was coming from a great distance, “Who are you? Are you nobody too?” It all made a great deal of sense in the foggy, dream-like state Chloe was trapped in.

The boy reached a hand toward her, and she stared at it. What an odd gesture. Did he want something from her? She wasn’t quite sure what to do. His words took a moment to break through the fog that hung over her, and a moment longer to register in her mind. Trust…It was something important. But it was missing something…Faith and trust…Faith, trust, and pixie dust…He would help her if she trusted him enough. But how did one trust? She didn’t understand. She looked up at the boy. He was so very confusing. But a small smile rose on her lips, though her eyes remained the same—cold and emotionless. “I like you,” she said dreamily. “You say odd things. And your eyes are pieces of sky.” The same memory stirred once more in her mind, and she remembered the day on the stairs. Her smile faded as swiftly as it had come, as she reentered the world of the distant past. Jason had held out his hand in the same way. “Don’t be afraid, Chloe,” he’d said, and she’d…she’d…Chloe slowly lifted her small hand and placed it in his, her long, slim fingers wrapping lightly around his hand. His skin was warm to her touch, a sharp contrast with her own flesh, which was cold. “Your hand is warm,” she stated softly. Jason’s hands had been warm, too. But he was lost. Just as she was, in a way. She was lost somewhere, deep inside herself, hidden behind enormous amounts of scar tissue, deep inside a fog that would likely never lift.

[Patch Jacobs]

Danielle Heart...? That name sounded only vaguely familiar. It had to have been from TV or something...

Patch watched the girl slowly come to smile. The way she did it struck a cord in his heart, because through his eyes, it was painful to witness. This was only because her eyes could find none of the joy a smile could possess, and it started him like nothing had in a long while.

"Thanks," Patch said, "I like you too. You're strange, but pretty. I'm sure someone misses you."

It hit him then, as he led her away from the rink, her cool hand in his own. The reason he recognized the name - because he'd seen the show she'd been on. Chloe King as Danielle Heart - he knew he seemed to remember her from somewhere. Even though her appearance had since changed slightly, he knew from long ago her face. And he knew exactly how he could find out where she belonged. His next actions were a first for him, because he suddenly turned to face her and grasped lightly her other hand. "I know exactly how to find out where you came from Chloe. No phonebooks needed."

Letting her one hand go, he turned and searched the streets. there had to be a place with free internet access. There was a place for everything in New York for gosh sake. There, he spotted it just down the street to his left, an internet cafe. Heading in that direction, he only prayed that his thoughts would turn out to be productive. He didn't think he could stand the disappointment it would bring her ... or the disappointment it would bring himself, if he failed.

[Chloe King]

Strange? Chloe King wasn’t strange. He was the strange one, the boy with the eyes of sky. He spoke of trust and extended his open hand to her, watched her with a gaze that seemed to show both pain and determination. How could someone feel both at once without collapsing into a heap on the ground like a rag doll? How was his head not spinning like a top? Dear Chloe, the small, sensitive girl that once existed within this human body had changed drastically. The river of emotions that used to be ever-present had been bottled, and the bottle corked so tightly that no amount of pressure could let the feelings burst from their prison. She was a shadow of her former self, her mind forever ruined by the horrible surgery she couldn’t remember. She shook her head slowly, then tilted her head a bit to the side, momentarily giving her the look of a lost puppy. “I am not strange, sir.” The boy’s next words made her wonder if Jason missed her like she missed him. Did he wander as she did, searching for her as she did for him? Was he as lost in this world as she was? He had to be; he was all she had in the world, and she all he had. “Do you think Jason is looking for me too?”

Chloe walked slowly, as if in a dream, and hummed a strange, haunting melody, a dark lullaby she couldn’t seem to get out of her head. The notes simply kept coming, repeating over and over until she had had to let it out in some way. Still it repeated, only now it was audible to others as well. Her eyes drifted from one object to the next, frequently coming to rest on the boy beside her, who still hadn’t given his name. She knew not what to call him, though she owed him a great deal of thanks. But thanks? What was that, exactly? She was glad to have help, but gratefulness was an emotion that was simply too complex for Chloe’s understanding. She most likely wouldn’t thank him herself, though if he brought her straight to Jason, he would definitely express his infinite gratitude. The problem was, where was Jason?

Patch’s sudden move to take her other hand as well surprised Chloe, and her gaze darkened, her humming ceasing immediately. No matter how gentle he was being, her mind was no longer quick enough to comprehend exactly what he was doing when he was doing it. He spoke of a plan to find Jason, but she didn’t register his words, simply stared at him darkly until he released her other hand once more and turned to continue walking. Quickly her expression cleared once more and returned to the dreamy, distant look she’d had before. She began to hum once more, restarting the same circling melody. Only when they had gone several more steps did his words sink in. “Where are we going?” she asked in the curious way a child would.