With a bottle of wine clutched in one hand and her gun in the other Grace Angeletti stumbled around the streets of New York in a confused state of exhaustion. How many days had passed since she had been preparing her speech in her home in Nevada? Grace recalled being at home, glass of wine on the table while pacing around the livingroom, notecards in hand talking aloud to herself then adjusting the wording, repeating it and trying again.

And then hell broke loose. The windows on her house exploded, the shards of glass flying everywhere. Grace touched the bandages on her arm, wincing slightly as she slowly applied more and more pressure to remind herself it was real and she was not losing her mind. From that moment her life had been a chaotic whirlwind of movement, fear and little to no sleep. Between rushing around to tend to the wounded, lamenting in private about the deaths and losses suffered, the days had passed. Time had gone and they were days of her life she would never get back, and people she would never get back. 

Grace's priority had always been Circle-of-Fire, the woman who found a way to see the good in everything. The woman who rarely let a curse pass her lips. A woman who inspired her and made Grace want to be a better person. Which was impressive given she was a Doctor and usually that was as high up as you could get outside of their world of crime. And as the days passed Grace was struggling. 

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, the fact that she was trapped in New York without any means of being there to protect Circle-of-fire which was her entire goal in life, or perhaps it was because Stefan had ignored her and was now gone forever and some other idiot was going to have to follow her around bugging her about things instead. Change was exhausting, war was exhausting. And Grace Angeletti was, to say the least, exhausted. 

So with her wine and her gun, Grace moved through the piles of bodies, the people chattering around her. Some called her name, some simply watched as she walked through them. She didn't know where she was going, she assumed there was only one end to this story and while if you had asked days ago Grace embraced the thought of death, with a gleeful exuberance of a toddler discovering the joys of small puppies or Very playful monkeys at the zoo. But now the seemingly endless amounts of optimism, the "We all have to die someday, its fine!" said in an upbeat way had been replaced with, "God I wish I could just fucking die already." as things dragged on and on and on and on. 

Grace had taken to calling Darkening on the phone at all hours and when he'd answer she'd just scream at the top of her lungs until he hung up. That did make her feel at least a bit better about everything. She had been called useless, and deep-down Grace knew she was not, but as the days wore on she wondered what was the point of her continued existence. Being a doctor she realized she should probably take some medication for these thoughts, but instead she was here. 

On the streets, wandering. And after lamenting silently to herself she took a seat on a bench and traced her fingers over a very old and faded carving of the name Nessa on the wood and smiled to herself. Grace looked at her gun, looked at the wine, looked at the world and then looked inward for a few more silent moments before finding the few remaining fucks she had to give to keep going. 

Besides, she was fairly certain her living was far more annoying to people than her dead. And that filled her with a childish delight that was just enough for her. 

The Cad listened intently to the lady giving the heartfelt speech.

Her demeanour was strange, she looked like she was sad, but that may have been due to the the haribo she had piled into her mouth.

still, fucking good cheekbones to be fair.

'Grace my little duckling, we have to be take pleasure in the time we have and the people we love. come, let us drink and get fucked up'

DING DONG!