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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 5, 2018 11:00:27 GMT -7
Teresa was completely horrified by all of this, she knew some of the things he had done.. listening to stiles go on about the man was enough for her to take some information in but this was really stupid of him. But she had to admit that he was right, he wasn’t made of glass and unless she actually focused her powers on the glass then it’s not likely that it will break. Of course that was wishful thinking on her part when it came to all of that.
She watched as he moved around her and then managed to look up towards where Barton was and wondered if he thought that this was a bad idea too. She slowly moved her eyes back down to look at Steve when he spoke that she wouldn’t be aiming at him but rather the shield and that didn’t make her feel any better about all of this. Teresa opened her mouth to argue with him but after what he said before she could completely pushed all of her thoughts away.
Teresa scoffed under her breath when he said of all the things she could do but either way he wasn’t going to be leaving this room until she actually did. “You’re a stubborn bastard” she said looking at him head on. She looked down at her hands once more and saw that they were shaking. How she could put herself through this a second time was beyond her but if this was the only way she could get home then she would do it.
She brought her hand up and the shaking started but it was soft and aimed straight at the star on his shield and then she brought her other hand up and it seemed Make the shaking that much more intense and she aimed all of that anger at him staying in the room at the star on his shield, he wanted everything she had so she was going to be going to give him that and she prayed that his pretty shield would hold up for him.
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Post by Ray on Jul 5, 2018 11:15:16 GMT -7
"You're not wrong," Steve replies, giving her a small, wry smile. It's not the first time he's heard it, and he knows for a damn fact it won't be the last. But his stubbornness pays off. Faced with only the option of hitting him as hard as she can or having to put up with him longer, she raises her hand, and Steve feels a slight tremor shake through his shield. It vibrates all around him, making even the air itself feeling like it's bouncing against his skin, pushing in waves against his feet, his face, his arm, but focused right at the star. Just as he said.
He tightens his arm, holding the shield firmer, and watches as she lifts her other hand.
"Is that all you got?" He taunts, wanting to get her reaction higher, wanting her to push herself. He knows it hurts. Knows she's exhausted. He can see it on her face. But the picture is slowly becoming clearer for him. And it does not take her long to rise up to his challenge. The vibrations become more intense, pushing hard against the shield, a low ringing echoing through the Juggernaut as the vibranium deflects the waves. Yet still, as her annoyance becomes more plain on her face, he feels his feet starting to slip backwards across the floor.
He bites back the urge to smile, and takes a step forward, pushing back against the tremor. "Come on, I know you've got more than that!" He yells over the noise.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 5, 2018 11:58:52 GMT -7
He taunts her and honestly she's not sure she likes it but she makes sure that he feels it through the vibrations that is coming from her. Teresa is tired, she's in pain but when he yells over the noise coming from the shield she pushes as hard as she can. She forces herself to feel every bit of the vibrations that she can just to show him that she did have more than what she had.
It seems like hours that they had been at this but she doubts that it is that long. Maybe minutes? Seconds? She wasn't sure but either way they were still at it.
Teresa pushes herself a little harder and the tiredness and anger on her face meant that she was able to push him a little harder too, gritting her teeth as she did and a yell escaped her mouth, something that sounded like she had said 'shut up' but then came the noise that she didn't want to hear and it seemed so much louder than the shield.. She was sure that she had heard the crack in her hand and with that she felt her knees go from underneath her. She cried out in pain and held her hands to her chest and closed her eyes tightly. She had hit the ground with such force that it seemed harder than the force that she had be using in her hands but now she felt like she couldn't do anything else but concentrate on the pain.
Strands of dark hair fell around her face and she looked away from him to conceal the tears that wanted to fall from just how painful this was. Teresa never liked crying around people and she didn't want to do it now but here she was on the floor with the tears burning the back of her eyes as she held on to her hands and made sure to keep herself from looking up. She wasn't mad at Steve or anyone else but she shouldn't have had to push herself to far even if she hopefully gave them what they wanted to know. Because there was no way she could go anymore. Not if she wanted to be able to use her hands at all.
It seemed like she was causing more harm to herself than to anyone else but like she had said to Barton upstairs; she would rather hurt herself than him or anyone else and she clearly had made good on that promise because she was now sitting on her knees in agony.
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Post by Ray on Jul 5, 2018 16:12:47 GMT -7
His muscles tense and strain, struggling to keep the shield from pushing in against his chest. He ducks his head behind it, gritting his teeth, not letting Teresa see the sweat starting to bead at his brow. She's powerful. More so than probably even Barton had any idea of. More so than Steve expected. His feet slip back some more, carrying him a good ten feet back towards the wall behind him, but he digs his heels in tighter, tightens his arm, and holds as best he can.
But the wave does not last for much longer.
Just as suddenly as the force pressing against him halts, a cry of pain erupts into the air, echoing across the Juggernaut. His arms drop heavily to his sides, weak as jello, the vibration still rippling through his muscles. But he looks immediately to Teresa rather than worrying about his own predicament. She's collapsed to her knees upon the floor, clutching her hands to her chest, her face a twisted mask of pain. Guilt rises quickly in his throat like bile, and he unstraps his shield in a hurry as he takes quick steps forward.
"Tony." He calls upwards, and throws his shield aside to the ground. He drops to a knee beside her, putting his shaking hands gently upon her shoulders. "Hey, hey. I'm sorry. I pushed you too hard." He says, voice quiet and soft.
"Cap," Barton's voice rings down towards them, just as he hears the familiar sound of the elevator doors opening, "Flameboy is adding more heat to the mix, call this off."
Steve looks over just in time to see a hand flip off the observation room, and its owner moving towards them determinedly. "Jesse," he breathes out.
"Move," is all Jesse has to say in reply, dropping swiftly down into a crouch beside Teresa and giving Steve's shoulder a push with his own. He's young, a few months shy of twenty, long strands of black hair falling messily into his near black eyes and serious face. Steve pulls away, hand falling from Teresa's shoulder to press to the floor instead to steady himself.
A part of him wants to sigh in relief. "You shouldn't be down here," he says instead, rather than you're late.
"No offense, Rogers," Jesse begins without looking at him, reaching forward to wrap his palms around Teresa's wrists, an orange glow shimmering through his skin as he radiates warmth into her bruised and injured skin, "But I think I know a little bit more about this than you do." His words are sharp, and only then does he give Steve a look that's nothing more than annoyance and on the very edge of being angry. Steve presses his lips flat. Jesse looks away again, setting his eyes on Teresa's face. "I'm Jesse." He says, coolly.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 5, 2018 16:37:24 GMT -7
Teresa looks up just in time to see Steve dropping to a knee beside her and then putting his hands on her shoulders. She looks up into his blue eyes when he apologises to her and she wants to speak and tell him that it's fine and that she will be alright in the end but she can't bring herself to say it and yet she doesn't know why because of the fact that she's not angry at him for pushing her. She too wanted to know the full extent of her powers and now that she had she was wondering just what the hell she had actually got herself in to.
What was more worrying is that she didn't know where this had come from, it's like one day she got angry and the room started shaking and now this is what happens when she really gets angry or upset for that matter and now her hands were in a lot of pain but she couldn't bring herself to hate him or even to get mad and she was going to say that when Barton's voice came over the comms and someone else was walking out of the elevator. She pushed her eyebrows together and watched as he walked over to where they were. Clearly this was someone who was very upset with Steve, just the look on his face told him that.
The way that he speaks to Steve has her feeling a little sorry for the guy but she watches as he is crouching at her side and for a moment she watches his face. So serious and definitely younger than everyone here. But this is a kid who definitely didn't take no for an answer when Steve told him that he shouldn't be down here. He reaches for her wrists and his palms are soon around them but she doesn't even shake him off when the warmth radiates into her skin and for a moment she is thankful for it. The words are hard and she looks over at Steve before biting on her lip and the kid introduces himself and that has Teresa turning her brown eyes back to him, moving over his face to take him in for a moment before she finally speaks.
"Teresa" she said and chewed on her lip.
She wasn't sure what happened but for a moment she thought she had a sort of connection with this kid but put it down to the fact that she was still trying to calm herself after what happened just now.
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Post by Ray on Jul 5, 2018 20:44:31 GMT -7
Jesse nods once when she tells him her name, but keeps his focus centered on her wrists, on the heat he lets build in the palms of his gloved hands, on soothing the ache as best he can with abilities not meant for healing. But he only has to take one look at the bruising to know that the injury runs deeper than surface level. Already, her skin is turning purple and blotchy, signs of internal damage, signs he knows well.
Steve rises to his feet, but Jesse doesn't look at him.
Fucking idiot.
He knows Steve well enough to understand that letting this girl get injured was not intentional. But there's a big difference between pushing someone who knows their power and someone who clearly doesn't. He caught only a fraction of this little test of theirs. But that was all he needed to understand just how little they really understand about this process. And how little Teresa understands about herself. The power must be new.
He moves his palms from her wrists, shifting to take her hands in his instead, pressing his thumbs gingerly across the bones of her knuckles. "I don't feel any breaks." He tells her, voice remaining even, "But you've probably given yourself a dozen hairline fractures. Bones aren't made to shake like that."
"He's right," Tony's voice echoes over the loudspeaker, "Cap, you should see this."
"I'll get a medic for you." Steve says, his voice still somber and apologetic as he walks away on legs that are still a little unsteady, heading straight for the elevator. Jesse only glances up when Steve's back is turned to them, his dark eyes glancing over him before he shakes his head faintly. And then he looks back to the girl, wrapping his hands around hers to radiate warmth back through them once more.
"How long have you had it?" He asks.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 6, 2018 3:03:02 GMT -7
The warmth helps her a little, it doesn't take the pain completely away but it does help and she watches him and wonders just how he is doing it. Maybe he has his own powers which are clearly different from hers and she was thankful for that because she wasn't sure if there really should be people who can do this sort of stuff.
Hell even she doesn't want to be able to do this but she would rather hurt herself than hurt anyone outside of this room or building. Teresa might not be the biggest threat that they have seen but she was a threat to those that she cared about or even some people out in the street and rather cause them anymore pain she would rather focus that on herself.
When he moved his palms from her wrists it allowed her to sit properly on the floor, crossing her legs as she did which gave her a better way of sitting especially with her knees starting to ache underneath her too. He then moved his thumbs over the bones of her knuckles and she winced. After the bruises started showing up she would have to ice them for a while but honestly this has got to be the first time she really pushed herself to do something like that. Jesse says about bones weren't made to shake and she couldn't help the slight smile that pulled at her lips before she looked down. Honestly she wasn't sure why she actually found that a little funny especially when she was sitting here in pain with those very bones that had done a lot of shaking.
Tony's voice comes over the loudspeaker but she doesn't look up in the direction but rather puts her eyes back on Jesse and chewed on her lip once more. There was just something beautiful about the boy especially as he had walked in like he was spitting fire. There was no way he was going to let Steve hurt her anymore even if it wasn't intentional and for that she was grateful.
Teresa looked up at Steve when he said about getting the medic for her and she nodded gently but there was no anger there, no malice or hatred. She understood a lot more than they realised. She had willingly put herself in this room to test her powers and to show them just what she could do. Better to show them than to explain because they would probably look at her as she rambled on about something silly. At least this way they could see just what she did. She moved her eyes away from Steve and up towards the glass to see if she could see Barton but Jesse's voice pulled her eyes back down to him when he spoke to her.
"I don't know, I'm guessing a while" she admitted. "I could feel these small tremors and I just thought it was either my building or just how New York worked I didn't know it was me" she muttered and looked down. "Then I would start waking up with these bruises and I would be painful for days but it seems as if I would wake up with more every day which I didn't understand and I was scared to see anyone about it but then not to long ago I had an argument with my dad over the phone and when I put it down the whole room started shaking so much and I even broke some glass in my apartment and.. I knew then that something was different but I don't know where they came from" she looked up at him and nodded.
Then she said in a very soft voice but she still knew he had heard her "What is wrong with me? Why can I do this?" she felt a tear fall from her eye and down her cheek and she didn't want them or even this kid to see her cry because she was stronger than that but it seemed as if they would see it anyway.
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Post by Ray on Jul 6, 2018 11:40:27 GMT -7
Jesse listens, her story more common than she probably realizes. Growing up in Orion, he's heard the same tale over and over again. It starts out small, unnoticeable, a weird oddity easily shrugged off. But something happens. A snap. And what had just been a mild inconvenience turns into something impossible to control on their own.
His story isn't so different either.
"There's nothing wrong with you," Jesse replies, spotting the tear that tracks its way down her cheek, but deciding to say nothing about it. Deciding to pretend as if hadn't noticed at all. He doesn't know how to handle crying people anyway. "You're different. That's all. Some people can juggle," He shrugs his shoulders and moves his hands to spread the warmth further along untouched bruises, "You can shake shit." He gives her a small, faint smile. "And with practice you'll get better."
Steve unhooks his helmet, yanking it up and off his head as he steps back into the observation room, face slick with sweat. His legs still feel heavy, as if he'd just run a marathon up and down the entire tower -- rather than face a single girl with a single ability. A slight tremor still shakes its way up his arms as he sets the helmet aside, moving towards where Tony leans over the monitors. Faintly, over the speakers, he can hear Jesse and Teresa speaking quietly.
"So. That package?" Barton says almost immediately, and when Steve looks to him, the anger on his face is almost potent enough to send daggers into his skin. "I thought you were talking about Amazon Prime, not the goddamn kid."
"We need him here." Steve replies, coming to stand beside Tony who is actively ignoring the both of them.
"For what? Being an ass and escalating the already fucked situation?"
"For that." Steve bites back, pointing sharply towards the glass looking down over the Juggernaut room where Jesse and Teresa still sit together, the air slowly starting to calm. Barton looks, brows still furrowed tight, unconvinced. "Jesse has dealt with his own chaotic abilities since he was eight. He has more control and more knowledge about any of this than the three of us combined."
"He's nineteen." Barton replies, setting his gaze back on Steve. "He doesn't know shit."
"Yet he's the one who acted and diffused the situation when none of us did." Steve argues, words hard on himself just as they are on him.
"Are you done measuring dicks?" Tony asks when there's a beat of tense quiet between them. Steve sighs out a slow breath, turning back towards the monitors. "Like I said. Jesse's right." She continues rather than letting them bite off each other's head anymore than they already had. She expands a recording of Teresa to fill the screen with a swipe of her hands. "I focused on Teresa's hands like you told me, and I think I figured out what's happening to her."
"What is it?" Barton asks, voice low, taking a step nearer too.
"She's not creating shock-waves out of thin air," Tony replies, "She's vibrating at such a frequency that she's mimicking seismic activity. Look." She says, and zooms in even closer. Slowing down the recording with a press of a button, they watch as the tremor originates directly from her hands, still almost too quick for the camera to catch, the air visibly changing around her with each pulse. "And...as Jesse so eloquently put it, bones aren't made to shake. She's putting her own body under extreme stress by pushing it far past human limits."
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 6, 2018 11:56:41 GMT -7
It seems like this kid can diffuse any situation and he definitely calmed her down but the fear was still there for her. The fear of hurting people was still very much there but it seemed as if Jesse didn’t honestly care about that. She didn’t know whether to scoff or be proud at that but it seemed like he wasn’t going anywhere yet.
Teresa heard what he was saying and chewed on her lip gently. Her father killed things that were different and she wondered just what he would do to her if he ever found out about this but unless someone went and gave him these findings or whatever Tony done on her then it was very unlikely that Scott would get that information from her. She was different and always had been different but this was a very different kind of different and she wasn’t sure whether she liked the idea of that at all. Mostly because people feared different especially when they didn’t understand things.
She moved her eyes over to look at him once more and then shook her head. “I don’t want to get better, I don’t want these powers at all” but she knew that there was no way they would be able to get rid of them so controlling them would have to be the next best thing and maybe in time she might be able to stop hurting herself along with the controlling.
The warmth spread to the parts of her bruised wrists and for that she was thankful because it meant that it had subsided for a little bit. She then said after a moment “What is it that you can do?”
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Post by Ray on Jul 6, 2018 13:04:35 GMT -7
"Yeah, well," Jesse begins, dropping his eyes from her face to their connected hands, "You have it. So might as well get used to it." His voice remains steady, unapologetic. He of all people understands the weight of having something destructive latched on like a leech to his skin, but eleven years of begging and screaming and praying to be rid of this thing has done no one any good. For a time, it only made everything worse. Only made him a hazard. Only made him one wrong step from being the first child locked up on the Raft. Sooner or later, accepting it becomes the only option.
For everyone's sake.
She asks her question after a quiet moment, and Jesse flicks his dark eyes back upwards to meet hers. He shifts a little uncomfortably, settling down onto a knee and chancing a quick glance towards the observation room. But sees only the Juggernaut reflected back at him. He drops his gaze once more. He exhales a slow breath through his nostrils.
"A few things." He replies, a little reluctantly. "I can...manipulate heat." He says, motioning with his chin towards his hands wrapped around hers. "From something as small as this to..." He trails off, trying to find the right words without sounding like an ass. But instead he pulls a hand from hers and twists it palm up. As he does, a flame ignites, engulfing his entire hand in thick tendrils of fire licking at the air, hot and burning. But he doesn't feel any of it. Even his gloves do not blister or burn, resistant to his own power. He rounds the flames into a ball with his fingers, and then crushes it into nothing as he makes a fist. Only the faint smell of smoke remains. "That." He finishes.
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 6, 2018 13:18:55 GMT -7
Teresa watches as he glances up towards the room upstairs and she too looks up but then moves her brown eyes back down to look at him. He speaks and then motions his chin to their hands and she raised an eyebrow when he said that he can manipulate heat. That was definitely something that she had never heard before but then again she didn't know that someone could do what she could so she was definitely out of depth here but she wasn't afraid especially when that warmth was actually helping her hands a little.
He moves his hand from hers and then she watches as a flame ignites in his hand and her mouth actually falls open because she was definitely surprised at that, not scared, just very surprised especially when she looked down at his hand and it didn't seem to even be burning it. She bit on her lip and then watches as he rounds the flame into a ball and then crushes it and she closes her mouth up with an audible click.
It seemed like there were a lot of special people out there that could do things like this but she had never thought that there would be people who were different from being a werewolf or even a vampire to name the two that she even knew about but she couldn't honestly say that she was frightened.
A silence hangs in the air between them for a moment and she kept her eyes on his hand because while there wasn't any fire there was a smell of smoke even if it was faint. "And it doesn't hurt?" she asks and brings her eyes up to look at him once more. Because if he could control something like that and it didn't hurt him anymore then maybe just maybe she could control what she does and not hurt anyone or even hurt herself because Teresa was getting really tired of waking up with bruises and possible hairline fractures but of course she would have to work at it if she wanted to be able to have that control too.
Teresa wasn't sure if this had been intentional, the two of them meeting here, but a part of her was actually thankful that they did meet here because it gave her a little hope that maybe she could control her abilities too even if she couldn't actually get rid of the damn things.
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Post by Ray on Jul 6, 2018 14:49:19 GMT -7
Jesse moves, sitting back upon the floor and releasing her hands entirely. She doesn't look scared, which is a relief. Especially since Hawkeye still treats him like a powder keg about to explode and Stark treats him like a pet project wrapped inside an angsty teen. When he's neither. Steve is the first one outside of Orion who's tried to find some normalcy between them. Some gray area between being super-human and being human. They train more days than not, something Jesse is still trying to wrap his mind around, but it's the days they're not that he likes best. The days they wander around NYC, the days they get street food, the days they leave this damned tower.
He feels like he can breathe on those days.
And he feels like he can breathe here, with her, without someone flinching just out of sight.
She asks her question, the reasoning obvious, and Jesse glances momentarily to his own hands and the gloves that cover them. Despite the observation room just up above their heads, he knows she needs more than friendly smiles and reassuring words. He's been in her shoes. He knows.
He tugs off his gloves, and drops them into his lap as he criss-crosses his legs. "I was eight when I first found out what I could do. And in a fucking terrible place." He moves his hands for her to see, setting them palms up in front of himself. The skin there is scarred badly and disfigured, never properly healing from the burns he suffered as a child. They were his own fault. But he suffered all the same. "I've built up a tolerance. Learned my limits. Probably killed most of my nerves anyway. But not until long after I'd ruined my hands."
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 6, 2018 15:12:09 GMT -7
Teresa watches as he sits on the floor and is releasing her hands, if she's honest then she feels a little better knowing that she wasn't the only one here that was different. Sure Steve was a super-soldier, Tony was super smart and Barton was an archer but they weren't anything like her so to know that she wasn't the only one in this building who had an ability actually made her feel a little better than any of them could really realise.
She was also thankful that they had left her alone to deal with everything that has happened. She needs to be able to take all of this in and not have sympathetic looks from Steve especially when he knows he went too far. Teresa didn't need sympathy she wanted to know how the hell this even happened and how she could control it if she couldn't get rid of it.
Teresa watches as he removes his gloves and listens to what he was saying. She couldn't take in that he had been eight when he first found out that he could manipulate heat and that was definitely much younger than her now and when she found out about her own abilities but she continued to listen rather than speak because it was probably better for him to get it all out rather than her actually keep interrupting him. Her eyes fell to his hands and she gasped softly, not out of disgust but shock at how badly they looked.
She reached out for his hand and gently took them in hers and looked over the skin and actually felt a little sad because that was something that no one should ever have to go through, especially an eight year old. "Jeez, I'm sorry" she said and then let his hand go before looking back up at him. "Can I do that?" she asked after a moment and put her hands gently on her knees. Teresa wasn't sure what she could really do with them especially when they were still purple and sore. "Learn to control my abilities? Because at the moment it doesn't really feel like I know my own limits if I can damage myself like this" she held her hands up and showed him before putting them back down onto her knees.
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Post by Ray on Jul 6, 2018 15:27:21 GMT -7
His brows twitch close when she takes his hands, having not expected her to react with such gentleness. Orisa has always been a hugger, always been affectionate, always smothered him in warmth and fond touches and even smacks across the head when he's being particularly dumb. Touching has never been a problem for him. But strangers always tend to keep their distance from him.
Not this girl.
Maybe it's because he initiated by grabbing her hands to numb the pain with warmth. Maybe it's just because she seems like a genuinely nice person. But it still takes him a by surprise the way she looks at his scars with such sympathy and kindness, holding onto his hand like they'd known each other for longer than just five minutes of sitting on the Juggernaut floor.
She apologizes and lets him go, and Jesse tugs his gloves back on. "If I can, you can." He tells her honestly, nodding once. "But it's not something that will come one day and everything will be solved and you'll get a trophy. I am...constantly aware of how I'm feeling and what I'm doing and what's bubbling beneath the surface. And with what I just saw," he glances back up to her, "You're probably going to have to be the same way."
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Post by Snowglobe18 on Jul 6, 2018 15:42:51 GMT -7
Teresa listens to him and then looks at her hands once more. After what she has just done it's very unlikely she would ever get rid of this so she might as well just get used to being able to do this. But more than that she didn't want to go out into the streets and hurt anyone by getting angry and unleashing an earthquake on the city, she would never be able to forgive herself for that.
She bit on her lip and looked up at him when he said about the fact that it's not something that would come in one day. "I definitely have patience" she admitted and nodded. It wasn't patience that she lacked especially if it's something that she really wanted to do and this was something that she wanted. She wanted to be able to say that she could control herself when she got angry and definitely not wake up with the bruises but that was going to take some time and time was something that she had a lot of.
"I'm not worried about being aware of any of that" she admitted with a shake of her head. "What worries me is how much more my hands can take before I can never use them anymore" she muttered. The last thing Teresa ever wanted to do was lose the ability to use her hands and it definitely wasn't just restricted to her hands or her wrists because her arms suffered too. Although they didn't take much of the brunt as her hands and wrists did but either way she wanted to stop waking up in pain and maybe a little each day she might be able to stop that from happening.
"Will I have to constantly be monitored or something?" Teresa was pretty sure that's what they had done today and probably found out a lot more than even she knew so hopefully they would be able to tell her something about how all of this works apart from the bit where she knew it was something to do with her hands.
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