The Right One

Vera stood in the middle of the large room, looking around with slow calculating eyes. What she was looking for she didn't entirely know. The Hospital wasn't exactly where one went just for the hell of it. She was neither hurt, nor sick.

Yet she still stood there.

A healer ran passed, not bothering to stop for her, when it became quite obvious she didn't need help, there were plenty other people who did. Her gaze followed the woman. There was slight longing in it. Not deep, or heavy but there none the less. There had been a time when she had thought that perhaps she'd like such a job.

Then life had gone and taken twist after twist on her, and she lost track of all her old dreams. Did she still want that life? Could she have that life?

It would mean she'd need to steal down. She supposed with apparation, she could come into work from where ever she wanted, but there was something about applying for a job.

If she actually attempted to take one... it seemed to say she was staying, making a commitment. There would be no more running when she decided she could't take how things turned out.

Vera would actually have to settle.

And she wasn't sure she was entirely able to do that.

Ondrea made her way through the corridors of St. Mungo's, side stepping as personnel ran past.

"Oh, hey, Ondrea!" one mediwitch greeted quickly as she walked past. "Visiting you mother? I think she's working intensive care, today."

"Yes," the girl confirmed, raising her voice a bit to be heard as she continued. "Thanks, Blanche."

Ondrea altered course accordingly, moving towards where she could find her mother. She had already decided she wanted to be a healer herself. For a while, the girl had thought she would have to give up that. Who in their right mind would want a werewolf as a healer? But her mother had reassured her, and it was something she wanted too much to give up without a struggle.

Speaking of werewolves in hospitals, however...

The teen slowed, gaze sweeping unerringly towards the other werewolf. She was older, both in human years and as a wolf. Technically, Ondrea probably should have diverted her gaze, but she didn't. It could have been taken as a challenge, of course, but looking away would have definitely been a sign of submissiveness. She decided being protege of the Alpha of the largest pack in the area gave her certain liberties.

Crossing over to the woman, Ondrea put on a cordial smile. "Looking for anything?" she asked politely. "My mum works here, so I kinda know where everything is."

Vera's ears almost seemed to prick up as she caught the scent moving across the room. Curiosity coloured her gaze as she began to hunt out the source. It was wolf to be sure, but she didn't recognize it from her days of romping around the packhouse. So either it was a new recruit, or not part of the pack at all.

"Not exactly," she responded easily as the girl who belonged to the new scent walked right over to her. Vera didn't bother to hide that she was looking her over. "Or well, I think I might be looking for something, but I don't think even you can help me find it."

Not bothering with any preamble, she held out her hand, "Vera Parker, Alpha of some division or another. Doesn't matter - I don't even know how I got there. And I'm assuming you at least think you have some power behind your gaze, or you just don't give a crap. Gotta say, I might respect you either way."

"I know the feeling," Ondrea responded easily. She accepted the proffered hand, ducking her head in a show of apology before her gaze returned - this time focusing on the woman's eyebrows. "Alpha? Do forgive my impertinence.

"Ondrea Montgomery. This hospital is my sometimes stomping grounds, but no authority," the girl replied. "I just don't like showing weakness. Grates on the nature." Her tone lowered just enough not to carry. "My wolf abhors it."

"Impertinence already forgotten," the girl stated with a laugh, waving it off. She really didn't bother flexing authority at all until someone got on her nerves. This young pup certainly hasn't gotten anywhere close to it yet. "You've got good manors Montgomery, but you can look me in the eyes. I feel sort of awkward otherwise - like I'm trying to be Hitler or Stalin."

After giving the room another cursory glance, Vera allowed her gaze to focus back on the younger girl. This time she was looking for something specific within the girl's expression, face.

"Weakness gets one no where in the world; just keeps them locked down." She paused for a moment more. "So what's your place in the world; I find it hard to believe that your no where."

"Just enough to keep out of most trouble," Ondrea quipped. She gazed placidly back as the woman studied her face. What she was searching for, the girl didn't know.

Ondrea inclined her head. "I'm a student," she replied, "at Beauxbatons. I suppose you can also say I'm... an apprentice of sorts, to another alpha. He seems to think my inability to play well with others won't be much of a problem."

"Oh, but trouble is so much fun," she flashed her a smirk, her eyes brightening almost childlike for a moment, the side of Vera that nothing had yet to be able to kill sparking up with no warning. "You haven't lived a life if you haven't gotten into a little bit of trouble. Just got to know which lines you don't cross."

Her gaze became more interested at the later comment, bring on a fresh wave of glancing the girl over.

"So you're Brockie's little apprentice," Even if Brock hadn't given her updates, she had been using Zino as a source of information the whole time she was away. It might have been a little presumptuous to immediately jump to Brock, but Vera reasoned that there weren't many Alpha's around, not really. The pack was rather far reaching. "He doesn't play well sometimes either, so I think you'll be fine."

"As long as you can get away with it," Ondrea agreed.

The girl quirked a brow, resisting the urge to sneer at the used of the word 'little'. It was better than 'Brockie' in any case. She'd have to use that, sometime. Then again, the man might appreciate the appellation. Maybe she wouldn't.

"So, you've heard of me. Can't say I've heard of you, but I haven't been much involved, as yet. I've only been in the pack about two months." Ondrea gave a small laugh. "I get the feeling that at other times, Brock play a little too nicely with some. Not that I can point fingers.

"How do you know each other, if I might ask?"

She noticed the change in expression right away. The eye brow raise, the slight struggle within her dark eyes, "No little then? I suppose I can curb my enthusiasm for such endearing pet names. I'll find you one, one of these days. Fair warning though, if I like it too much, no amount of grimacing is going to make me give it up."

It was with an easy shrug that Vera took the news of her anonymity; that was what one got for disappearing, and besides her relationships she hadn't had much importance within their world. She doubted even if the younger wolf had been involved more, she wouldn't have heard of her, not except for a the bare minimum in passing.

"Oh, you're far more interesting than me. You're a novelty - I'm old news, novelty has come and gone. Speaking of gone, I also haven't been around much myself. Looking after some younger wolves down west about, across the pond and all that." Vera couldn't help but give a snort at her next comment, "Yes, Veni does have his lady habits. Don't think he'll ever settle down, not without..." The wistful tone her voice had taken, stopped abruptly. Sharing Brock's relationships - and in turn getting too close to sharing her own - with the younger girl was not what she was intending at the moment.

Probably not ever.

"Oh, we're old friends - he was my mentor of sorts too, once upon a time. But not like he'd look after you know. I was young, wild - confused - when I was first changed. They thought I needed someone close to my own age to show me the ropes, calm me down. They decided Brock was it."

Ondrea gave an indelicate snort. "I'm a troublemaker, more like. Did you have problems being a dominant female within a traditionally male-ruled group? True, we're supposed to be all equal rights and such, these days, but some of our kind seem rather less evolved. Including the females." She wrinkled her nose at this thought.

The girl gave no further comments regarding her mentor. It was not her business, really, therefore, not her place to say anything.

"Wait," Ondrea said, blinking at the woman. Her expression went utterly blank. "You had someone to mentor you from the start, then?"

"I suppose there's always a few pigheaded idiots, but I always pushed my way passed them, either with my charm, or my fists," she gave a little laugh and a wink before she sobered again, taking the young girls question with the actual seriousness it deserved. "I don't know. I was always more like a boy, from a young age - don't get me wrong, I knew my way around... feminine arts, I could get the boys when I needed to," another wink, a quick lapse in her seriousness, "but when it came down to things like speaking out, or even fighting back, I always held my own. I never really let them forget my face, or my talent. I made them listen to me I suppose."

It was something that she never really thought about until that moment, not really. So much had happened in her life since she had been brought into the pack that they had become much more of a family than anything else - even though she understood there were political structures there, she hardly ever thought of them. Perhaps it helped that at the time of her turn she had been looking for a family, a place to belong.

The curious response to what Vera had thought a simple answer, brought her gaze to Ondrea, a slight frown on her own expression as she looked at the girl's blank one.

"I'm not entirely sure I'm something to be jealous of. I was really... a wreck when I was turned. The first time... I didn't realize what had happened to me, not after the attack, not even completely after that first time. I had no potion, I had nothing but a scar on my back, and ability to smell, see, hear things I couldn't before, and not a complete understanding of why the moon was suddenly so... powerful. They didn't give me someone from the start out of compassion - though I'm sure there are some who may get them - I was a menace. Someone had to keep me from making a bigger mess than the wolf who had changed me and didn't stick around already had."

"You mean, like maul some poor man who has probably never hurt anyone in his life? A mess like that, maybe?" Ondrea asked, trying to keep her voice level and void of the bitterness that had risen up within her. She didn't quite succeed. "When I was turned, I had a dead brother and parents who could never understand what I had experienced. I didn't even speak to another wolf until a year later - and then, it was the man that I had turned when I screwed up and lost control.

"You'll have to forgive me if I feel a bit envious," she concluded stiffly.

Vera nodded her head in appreciation, not exact admiration, but definitely akin to understanding, "Nothing to forgive. If I could go back and give you someone I would. But there isn't much we can do for the past any more."

"Sorry about your brother. Never had any siblings myself, not to say I haven't lost things, done my share of that," her hand, as always went unconsciously to her stomach, or more specifically just below it, "But family, my parents didn't bother to try, not that they knew. I only didn't change someone out of pure luck myself." She shrugged her shoulders, "And to be perfectly honest I can't be perfectly sure I didn't get anyone, my wolfside's a little...energetic. Don't stay in place very long."

She gave a rueful grin, shaking her head. She lapsed into silence, focusing on her feet for a moment, her thoughts drifting to her own past, her own life, and touching the future. She was still curious to see where that would take her - to be truthful it didn't look that bright, but Vera firmly believed she always needed to have faith in something. After all, that was what she was named after.

"But no one needs to out past anyone else. We all end up this way somehow, most of us without much of a choice. We just have to live trying to make the unnatural, natural." She smiled then. "That's what the packs for, even if we don't get to everyone as soon as we should."

"Not your fault," Ondrea murmured. Her gaze drifted off across the room, briefly visiting the past. Then she looked back, canting her head just so. The topic was closed.

"So. Visiting someone or just wandering the hospital?" she asked. "Which, I should point out, is considered only slightly less creepy than people who roam graveyards without reason."

Vera smirked slightly, "Drat,so now isn't the time to get my deep rooted desire to converse with the dead late at night off my chest? And here I was think I'd finally found someone to unburden myself to."

Her smile never wavered though there was that small inkling though that pointed out she did spend her fair of time at the cemetery, however that did have a reason. And she hadn't been there in about a year, of late. She mentally reminded herself it was almost time to go back.

"Neither actually, or well a little the second, but there was a reason," her smile this time was softer, "I use to think, a long time ago, that I wanted to do this.... work here. But life sort of took me on a different path. I thought maybe it was time to revisit the old one. I needed a new road anyway."

Ondrea gave a light laugh.

"Different how?" Ondrea prompted. "I've always wanted to do this, myself. My mother works here, so she kind of inspired me. Most of the staff here know me by sight, so they let me watch what I was permitted to. For a while, I thought I couldn't, anymore. After--" She shook her head. "But then I decided that letting go of my dream would be allowing my brother's murderer to win.

"Besides, everyone has demons. Ours might seem more apparent to others, but everyone still has them. Werewolves can help people just as much as anyone else. Maybe more."

Ondrea shrugged. "That's my story, though, what nearly derailed me. It's a good road."

"That's a good way too look at it," she gave a smile and a nod. "You must be far more responsible than I ever was."

It was true. Vera, in her youth, had allowed the one set back to derail her completely, and totally, for years. Here she was, thirty, no family no real job. She had let what she had become be an excuse to remain a child. To not have anything to work towards.

She ignored the fact that she had, had on relationship, once and she had almost had a family, almost.

Those did a lot towards breaking her path too.

"There'd be a lot of school for me, if I wanted to do something like this," Vera said, almost using that as an excuse. Shrugging her shoulders she grinned and turned, "But it was nice chatting. I'll see you around the house sometime I'm sure. I'll tell Brockie you said hi, yes?"

With a grin she waved and turned to leave.