TORI! on the ranch. if a ranch is this small

She sighed as Nilly pretty much said don't let the door hit you on the way out. The girl just wasn't a morning person until she was all made up and had brushed that mane of wild hair. Sabs couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been happy to wake up in the morning feel'n like P-Diddy, whereas Nilly was more of a night person, or at least she usually stayed up way late studying or doing something ridiculous that Sabrina found to be time consuming and useless (like Nilly could even fail a test. That was impossible... the chances of her failing were never to never)

Sabrina walked out into the kitchen and started to set the table. Plates with worn out designs of pretty field flowers, ruined silverware from their parents wedding, and two mismatched cups. Maybe in the Capitol this would be considered cute and quint, some rich kids having fun going boho, hippie cool with old, reused, etcetc stuff. Here in District Five it was just a way of life, the orphans were lucky they had eating utensils at all.

She splattered a hurriedly made breakfast onto the plates just as Nilly came strutting out of her room. Sabrina sat down and started and tasted the food. Its okay considering I don't have a cooking bone In my body, she thought, pleased with her handiwork. Then again, you couldn't really mess up pre-made pancakes, could you? She looked up as her little sister started talking. Sabs paused, a syrup-slathered piece of pancake on a fork was held just in front of her face, she answered before stuffing it down her throat. "The usual. We need to clean up the animals mess and I'd like some help feeding them." The Harrison sisters didn't have a large amount of animals, but they had a few that needed to be taken care of. Time and attention was all they needed. Along with tons of food, water, shelter and a steady temperature.

"I thought maybe we could hang out afterwards, y'know? Just like old times..." she suggested, yet again attempting to keep the guilt and worry from her voice over her deep, dark secret. Sabrina knew she just had to keep in the moment or little Nilly, the cleverest person since the inventor of bread, would figure out that something was wrong. And then she would start snooping around, looking for leads in the mystery of why her big sister was acting like a paranoid loser.

Sabrina had denied there was anything wrong with her as Nilly, poor, poor Nilly who had almost been sent to her death today, walked her to the local clinic. She shook her head and wiped tears, sweat, snot, dirt and blood from her face, but instead just mixed it all around in a disgusting, unreassuring mess. Nilly dropped her off and told one of the nurses not to let Sabs just leave in a few seconds. Then her little sister just drifted away, her head in a different place than Sabs had ever seen it.

There had been moments where Nilly acted like a zombie. Following the death of their father, after an instance involving her little sister being forced to watch somebody getting beaten up. She had been heartbroken a few times before, but Nilly was not Nilly. As Sabrina was put down on a bed and a sharp needle thrusted into the underskin of her arm, she pictured the girls face. Her happy face, her sad face, her zombie face. The expression Nilly had just a few moments before had frightened Sabrina Harrison more than all of the other scary experiences before, because this time her sister was the strong one when she had a right to be curled up in a ball moaning and sobbing. Sabrina had no right to make Nilly's life harder after this day.

She tried to weakly protest as she fell under, Sabrina even managed to lift her head a bit, enough to see the nurse assigned to her dipping a cloth into some liquid that was meant to wipe away the days events from her face. She let out a small moan, slurred words escaped her mouth. Please let me go, miss. Please, my sister... I'm alright, really I am. Sabrina was dead to the world within seventy seconds after that needle entered her body though. Her eyes were shut and the worry and anguish on her face smoothed out. If somebody walked in now, they would not suspect what had occurred before, they would think her a dreaming sleeper. Maybe they would think she was at peace, dead.

Finally her eyes opened and the doctors spoke words to Sabrina F. Harrison. She nodded along as they stuck a bag into her hand containing cures for whatever she had, anti-depressants for, 'the poor thing, your dear sister,' and a bill that had been cut in half, thanks to a generous donation by the Capitol-representative who had just felt so, so, so, very, really bad for the Harrison orphans. Sabs did not wake up until she opened the door to the Harrison residency though.

Her eyes fell upon a huddled mess of a teenage girl. Sabrina let her eyes adjust to the darkness before dropping the bag she had been holding. She quivered as she came over to Nilly and embraced her, holding the girl close to her as though Vilarion Harrison was still a tiny baby, and not a tall girl who had grown to be taller than her big sister. Sabrina reached for a blanket and wrapped it around the two of them, the smell of warmth, comfort and home relaxing her.

She held Nilly and whispered sweet comments to the girl for some time, not even aware that she was drifting off to sleep until her eyes shut. Her arms were still wrapped possessively around the pitiful creature half next to her, half on top of her.

The next morning.

ooc- I thought the two could use some rest after that day, not a deep conversation just yet, so I powerplayed that a little bit. If you want an edit just ask.

Sabrina's body did not betray her, her mind did not create elaborate nightmares where Nilly died of the Hunger Games shortly before Sabs died of the illness eating up her insides right now. Oh well, she had never had an imagination, and Sabs supposed having a deep, dreamless sleep was her bodies gift to her after a long, stressful day. However her brain did not let her wake up peacefully to the sizzle and smell of home made breakfast. She woke up uneasily, the memories of the Reaping still fresh in her head. Sabs had been sub-consciously hoping that she actually had had a nightmare that night: that the whole Reaping and doctors visit had been one long nightmare. She had wished to wake up to another pleasant morning with only the last traces of a troubled dream on her mind.

Well, she supposed that it was not her bodies fault, the sudden onslaught of violent memories so early in the morning. It was more realities fault for letting the events come to pass, to put it in 'Why me?-rebellious teenager-emo words.' I mean, the world really was not against the Harrison family (neither Nilly nor Sabs were technically dying or dead yet) but still, Sabrina Fallon needed somebody to blame. When in doubt, blame luck and other mystical anomalies because they serve as fabulous scapegoats. He-llo! The witch trials that her old history teacher had once told their class about. Some idiots from pre-Panem times had figured hot, young women were actually casting spells on them, using more than flirting and good-looks. Magic. Ha! What a concept, if there was any good magic, it would have saved the people of the Districts already and dueled against the evil wizard, President Snow.

Sabrina finally opened her eyes and sat up, turning in her sisters direction. What to say, what to say. Sabs was not clever and intelligent like the Harrison's second daughter was. She did not phrase her thoughts well, more often then not insulting her friends and family when trying to praise them. She stared at the breakfast-cooking girl before her with a slack jaw and empty, sick eyes. Finally Sabrina worked up the courage to speak impromptu. "What's for dinner?" she questioned, but grinned as she mentioned the wrong meal. Oops. The memory of Nilly's face yesterday worked its way to the active part of her mind though, and pain battled--and won--control of Sabs features. She went rigid and a hopeless look replaced her happy-go-lucky smile.

Sabs happily joined her sister in the kitchen. She took about four steps away from the couch, and nearly ran into the kitchen table, which was nestled right in the middle of what the Harrison's referred to as their sitting room, (Her mother had once told Sabrina when she was very young, that if was not technically a living room if there was no television) and their kitchen. The table served as a dining room, home office, as well as a number of other things. Right now it was loaded up with platters overflowing with home-cooking. Sabs didn't even bother to waste a dish and pile some of the delicious food onto it--she simply ate off of the platters, thinking about all the dishes she would have to wash anyways.

Hey, water was a precious resource--almost as valuable as her time. Whatever the Harrison girls could do to save it, they would gladly do. The crunching sound that accompanied bacon, followed by the wet, slurping of drowning pancakes and finally buttery toast filled the silence, serving as a juggling monkey to take the two teens eyes off the real elephant in the room. Darn, Nilly just had to ruin it all with her questions.

Feeling very sly and clever, Sabrina circumnavigated the question, subtly with another question to answer her sisters third of the day. "What did the doctor tell you?" she asked suspiciously. Her doctor had seemed like a kind person, but who knows what dirty, little secrets her younger sister now knew. Nobody likes a tattle-tale and besides, Nilly Harrison was a minor. Sabrina was the adult--she, she could handle it on her own. Why drag such a young, already damaged smarty-pants into her life's mess?

Truth be told, Sabrina Fallon had a feeling she should have brought the younger woman into this 'mess' a long while ago. So much pain, so much wasting of money. All of it could have been avoided, if only she had had a girl with so much common sense and intelligence next to her when that corrupt doctor convinced a perfectly fine girl that she was dying. Dying of the same cancer her mother had been killed by, nonetheless.

Ahh, the drama.