and all of the ghouls come out to play, haidennnnnn

ouuuuuuuuuuuttttttfiiiiiit!

Saturday, June 16th, 11 PM

If there was one place in the world Kallie was certainly most not expecting and unprepared to be, it was Treq. After dark.

Wearing brightly colored clothing that pretty much said, "Hey! I'm here! Come and rape me!" Granted, that was judgmental thinking for a psychiatrist, but she knew the odds. Treq wasn't a safe place, more so after dark. And she wasn't exactly dressed inconspicuously. Nonetheless, no amount of discomfort would keep her from tracing a path in the most unorthodox of places tonight.

"Dr Marz, I can't."

Those four words. They were the ones that made her come.

In retrospect, Kalypso would probably say that this had been one of her more stupid decisions, but she had promised Sasha that she would come whenever needed. And hovering in a bar, fighting the urge to take a drink after a year or so of sobriety definitely qualified as needed.

She probably could have refused. After all, it had been a long time since Kallie herself worked with the girl, but she just couldn't turn away. Sasha was in a dark place, and she needed help. And so, Kallie had ended the last session of the day immediately (her patient, an Alliance member, was neither surprised nor happy) and made her way over to the side of town best left undisturbed. Oh, well. If Sasha could brave these areas well after nightfall, then so could she.

And it wasn't as if Kallie had never visited the Red Light before. How often had she been called to pluck its patrons away? How often had she been the one to counsel them back into sober decision-making? Far more often than she could count. Though, now that she was a practicing physician specializing more in depression and the like than addictions (not that they didn't always go hand-in-hand), her visits here had become few and far between.

Why were these places always as dark inside as outside? Yes, she was annoyed. Kallie grumbled as she scanned the area, looking for Sasha. Surely she'd be by the bartender? Hopefully not passed out on the floor. Or...

Or in the middle of the bar fight that was breaking out.

The frown increased when Kallie caught sight of that familiar brown hair. Yep. Never a boring night with Sasha Castor.

Now the question was, should she wait till someone else broke up the fight, or try to keep Sasha from knocking out her opponent? Kalypso wasn't sure how much damage the tiny Neptunian girl could deal, but as she seemed to be holding her own pretty well, she could stand to be surprised.

Haiden really, really hated Treq.

No, but really. Last time she'd been in that god-forsaken clusterfuck of a place, she'd suffered the near-fatal stab wound that had awakened her as Sailor Uranus.

So there was the (dubious) pro of regaining full memory of her past and learning of her unavoidable duty to rescue the present and protect the future. But there was also the weighty con of being brutally stabbed by a pack of thugs in the midst of her heroics. And while she had somewhat forgiven Khonsu for the role he'd played in this, the sensation of your own lifeblood seeping out through a gory stab wound was not one you soon forgot.

All of that said, it seemed reasonable to assume that there were few things, if any, that could drag her back into Treq. But some of her Earth-bound racing colleagues, who she'd been able to see and socialize with less and less, what with her new senshi duties, had all but begged her to show up for a little shindig they were having at a bar in Treq, of all places. She had, at last, reluctantly agreed.

They'd all been a few beers deep, laughing and having a good time, and Haiden was pleased she had decided to join the dozen or so other racers for a good night on the town. No one had bothered them. In fact, no one was really bothering anyone, apart from a few unsolicited gropes here and there. She didn't really have that problem, being about as femininely desirable as any of her hyper-masculine friends.

Going into her fourth beer was when the trouble started. Her gaze had just happened to settle on the bar area, where a tall man with blonde curls was practically screaming down a brunette, who wasn't backing down at all, and was just as angry. The events that followed happened so fast, that Haiden hardly knew how to describe the way in which this two-person spat became a group brawl.

Haiden frowned as the two women who had somehow managed to get in the middle of the fight, including the initial brunette, were knocked about. The brunette seemed to be holding her own at first, but she was outnumbered by whatever friends her opponent had brought. If he had brought any. Sometimes, people just liked to fight there for the fucking hell of it.

Watching it made her uncomfortable. She knew she had to do something. But what?

Rising from the table, she strolled closer to the group, and reached out with a snap of her arm, clasping the collar of one of the men in the brawl and throwing him easily down to the ground, out of the fight, thereby eliminating one brawler.

"BREAK IT UP," she yelled, her brow furrowing.

Kallie stood there, trying to find some way to bring Sasha out of the fight at least, when her saving grace, that of a woman who was easily strong enough to throw one of the big, burly men out of the fight, began trying to break it up. Kallie smiled. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have to get involved. Perhaps she could just slide in, snatch Sasha, and make it out without a scratch.

She was there, after all, for Sasha's benefit and no one else's. So, while this saint of a woman was trying to wrestle calm into the bar, Kallie slid in, wrapped her arms around Sasha's middle, and dragged her away from the center of the fray. This only proved helpful until Sasha, unsure if she was being dragged off to be kidnapped or beaten up some more, twisted around and punched her in the face.

At once, Kallie let go, swaying in the dim light of the bar as Sasha leaned in to land another punch. But then, there was an intake of breath, an exclamation of, "Dr. Marz?!" and the sound of a body falling swiftly to the floor. Kallie rolled her eyes as she brought a hand up to her cheek bone. Even though she had hardly seen Sasha in the last year, she was still well aware that the woman was nothing if not dramatic, and swooning after making a slightly tragic discovery was right up her alley. It seemed now that Kallie would be charged with the task of dragging her home as well as nursing a rapidly swelling cheek.

By the time that Kallie was seeing clearly again, it seemed that the woman from before had the fight well at hand. Kallie was impressed. She was either a true force to be reckoned with or simply a person who got things done. With a lingering glance at her sleeping former patient, Kallie decided that she might as well thank the woman for breaking up the fight.

Kallie pulled the sleeping Sasha up to a standing position (sort of) and leaned the woman against her shoulder as she slowly but surely took a few steps toward the other woman. Yeah, this wasn't going to work. Kallie was quite sure that they wouldn't be able to last the trip home. Maybe she could ask for help as well as thank her? It was worth a shot.

"Um, excuse me?" Kallie asked as he neared the woman, struggling under the weight of Sasha. "I have to thank you for breaking up the fight. My friend here was having some trouble."