Post by Sister Angel Smith on Jun 22, 2009 13:42:00 GMT
Name:
Angela "Angel" Gwen Smith
Age:
24
Physical Description:
Standing at a perfectly average five foot five, Angel cuts what she's always seen as a perfectly average figure, with her slender but softly rounded body, curly dark hair with a tendency to frizz and muddy brown eyes. But Angel has never been the type to mind feeling average; simply because she always had far too much to think about that it didn't occur to her to worry about it. Besides, she looks fine and she knows it - after all, why would someone have married her if she didn't look fine? Gareth told her she was beautiful, and that was good enough for her. Yes, she has her few unsightly scars on her limbs but with the things that she has seen and the places she has been, Angel just knows that she's lucky to have them intact, never mind how pretty they look. However, she does love her skin. It's dark, creamy, never dry, never oily, and never once has she had a breakout of spots, even in the awkward teenage years. It's definitely her favourite physical attribute.
Other than that, there aren't any other features worth particular mention, but her facial features are put together in such a way that her face shows the underlying soft warmth of her character, especially when she smiles.
Clothing Description:
Basic, casual, practical. Again, ninety per cent of the time Angel is far too busy to put much thought into what she wears. On duty or in hospitals, obviously she is in her nursing uniform - whether that is the uniform of the Orchid Hill Carers or that of the Field Medics. Her work still influences what she wears off duty, as it's a common occurrence for her to have to administer treatment. There's no such thing as a work/life balance - work is your life. End of! She rarely has time to dress up anymore, so at the minute her wardrobe is made up of practical boots and flat shoes, shirts, jumpers, etc, the standard things. Now that she's involved in teaching work, it made sense to wear slightly more formal clothes for teaching, but most of her time is spent in the ward.
She doesn't wear jewellery unless it's for something more formal than day to day life, preferring to wear a simple watch (accompanied by the fob watch that she was given by her father when she was made Head of the Carers when she's on duty) and her ruby engagement ring on the ring finger of her right hand. Obviously she doesn't wear her wedding ring any longer - that gold band is kept in its box in a locked drawer. When they divorced, Gareth didn't want the rings back, so she keeps wearing the engagement ring as a reminder of the mess she made, so she'll not do it again (not as part of a Miss Havisham effect, as was suggested by a concerned colleague). But it's more that - Gareth, the marriage and divorce are such a huge part of her life that it would feel strange not to acknowledge it at all. And it's not just a reminder of that - before it all turned sour, it was the happiest point of her life and she's not bitter enough to completely ignore that.
Personality:
As a former Head of Carers and a nurse with the power of empathy, it shouldn't need to be stated that Angel's principal character trait is a genuinely caring nature.
(ooc: I'm aware that this is cheating, but I think the rest of the intro makes her personality more than perfectly clear, so if this is okay, would I be able to leave this section out? *holds out basket of muffins*)
History:
Angel was born in a small rural town in the middle of Kent, England to Thomas and Gwen Campbell, both in their early forties at the time of her birth. She was a late, much wished-for baby, and one that they thought would never come, after several miscarriages and failed IVF attempts. But, eventually, luck came into it, and Angela Gwen Campbell was born. A miracle, they called it. That's why they called her Angela - she was to be their little Angel, the blessing they'd been brought later on in their lives just as they thought time had run out.
It wasn't an easy pregnancy, though. Gwen suffered from several conditions throughout it, and the labour most certainly was not easy. In the end, despite her insistence on a natural birth, Angel was delivered by C-section. Not that that was the end of it. Haemorrhages, tearing, infections, you name it.
In the end, she survived through that. It was the infection on the C-section incision that led to septicaemia that killed Gwen. Angel never knew her mother.
Her father made up for it acting as both parents though. Angel was always going to be a daddy's girl, but being raised by him single-handedly had a great effect on her relationship with him. Instead of being one of the children who struggled through their upbringing with a deceased parent, Angel blossomed under her father's care, as a good student and a happy child. A happy but empathetic child, even before the advent of her powers. She always had a sense when people were unhappy and were hiding it, and this was something she was always painfully aware of when it came to her father. She still says it now - he never got over her mother, and even his little angel could never take that grief away from him. That was when her compulsion to care for people began. She always tried to make him happier.
Still, Angel had a happy childhood, running about the countryside and her father's forge. The Campbell family had a long history as blacksmiths, and even with the incredibly low demand for smiths, Tom still managed to do reasonably well with a mixture of the traditional forge work for museums and the like, cast iron banisters and work as a farrier. With Angel's metal power, she turned out to be a great help around the forge with her father and his assistants, although her powers didn't quite run to cast iron, that was their job.
Living in a non-magical area, the arrival of Angel's powers should have come as a surprise were it not for the fact that her mother, a Healer, had been gifted. Tom was not gifted, but knew enough to be able to show her how to control it, and above all: to keep the magic secret. It wasn't only a non-magical area, it was a fiercely anti-Orchid Hill area, where protests against the Orchid-affiliated were frequently staged, along with operations branded as "witch-hunts" by her father. These weren't just people that disagreed with the policy taken by Orchid Hill, but people who felt that the lives of their families and friends were being taken by the war caused by what this school believed in. Anyone magical was shunned, and anyone affiliated with the school faced a far worse fate. Secrecy was vital.
But, eventually, like her mother and most other magical children, she went to Orchid Hill Academy for the Gifted when she turned of age, leaving behind her beloved father to go to school. She was placed immediately in the Carers, and with her gentle nature and healing, thrived at it, to the stage when she became Head of the Carers in September 2000. That was when she was asked out by a friend of hers, Morgan Collins, who became Head of the Academics and Angel's first love. His kind, shy personality matched hers perfectly, and they had a happy relationship until the tensions of their both being Heads of groups became too much, as Morgan's head filled with battle plans and Angel's with injuries, causing a certain level of distraction and tension. It didn't help that Morgan was currently having trouble with the Head of the Warriors, James Bradley, so whenever she saw him, his tension level was so high that it broke through her empathy barrier and began affecting her. His anger became her anger, which was added to the stress she had already, and she had nowhere to direct it but at him. So when this resulted in several breakdowns and arguments that did not suit their quiet natures, they decided they despite how good their relationship be, they were better off as friends as the relationship where they were both so constantly stressed and tense was affecting them so badly.
And stay friends they did, even while they were getting over each other, and it lasted through the three happy years where they were all thriving Heads, in a a thriving school, aided along by what were going to become legendary battle plans made by James and Morgan as they learned to work together. Not one life was lost in those years, and for the most part, it was a happy place to be.
But of course, as much as they loved it there, they couldn't stay forever. Eventually, they came to their final year, and that year flew in - so before she knew it, Morgan was off to Iceland, James to the Sahara, and Angel was making her farewell speech to her Carers, hugging Nurse Gornray goodbye and looking into the void of the future, wondering where to go next. She could have left it all, of course. She could have left the realm of the Orchid War, to go to university and take a nursing degree, get married and have two-point-four children - essentially, to live a normal life untainted by war.
However, having spent the last several years of her life working towards a cause, Angel wasn't about to give up now, so she signed up as a nursing aide on the Andorra front. After working so many years and so many battles, she felt that with that experience, she had seen it all, seen enough to know what this would be like.
But however bad the Orchid Hill frontier fighting could get, Angel had seen few deaths, thanks to the legendary Bradley-Collins partnership. And however much people could cheat in their battles, compared to this, Orchid Hill fighting was positively clean. This was war, and this was dirty.
On Angel's first day, she was placed in an ambulance, and she didn't even have time to familiarise herself in her new surroundings when the first casualty came in. 22 y.o. male, shrapnel from a bomb blast through his chest. Dead on arrival. Swiftly followed by more casualties from the same blast, all horrific - contusions, punctures, burns.
Seven deaths.
And this is how it continued. Under the stressful conditions, Angel was making the best of her capabilities - as an ex-Head of the Carers, she thrived under stress and she was in her element here. But, over time the soft optimistic light in her eyes started to dwindle to be replaced by a harder, colder blankness. Her face took on that look that they all had, a look born of something between horror and fear. That was how you coped with it all, you see - you pushed it back, and you ignored all the atrocities you saw every day.
Sometimes, though, there were days where things came along that shattered that pretence. Horrible things happened each day, but sometimes, one of those things could break through the protective shell of numbness. Like the day two years into her work. Like the death of a passing child, shot down in the crossfire. She was two years old, beautiful, and completely uninvolved in this fight. She could have had a long untainted life ahead of her. Like the injury that followed the dead toddler. Imagine this. Stretch your left out in front of you. Do you see how it follows out from your knee? Imagine the bone of your shin, the tibia, pushed back with a force so great it sends the bone shattering through your kneecap in a pixie dust shower of bone shards and blood. The force is so great that it is not enough to stop there. As the bone starts to shift, your knee begins to recoil towards your chest. So, when the bone breaks through the keen, the first place for it to go is straight through your ribs into the organs in your pleural cavity. But some freak twist of fate means that you're perfectly alert and aware through it all.
This happened to a 25 year old boy from the troops. He'd been to see Angel a few times before this, for minor cuts and bruises. His name was Matt Lewis, and he was a bright-eyed, charming young man with a young, pretty fiancée waiting at home for him to finish his tour so they could have a June wedding in their local church, complete with cream, gold-edged placecards. He'd been so sarcastic about those placecards when he told Angel about the wedding, but with that hope for the future in his eyes and a smile lighting up his face as he talked of his Jenny. And with one impact blow, his leg was now shot right through his chest.
He died that day at 3.47 p.m.
After that, Angel had felt that she needed a break from all of it, to go home to The Forge to be with her father and try to get over the things that she had witnessed. So she applied for, and was granted leave, before booking the flight home, for the first time in a while looking forward to something - to seeing her beloved dad again. However, shortly before she boarded the security-protected flight to London Gatwick, she was met with the news that her father had been shot by an anti-magic mob, who had found out that not only was Tom Campbell's late wife magical, his daughter was gifted - and not only that, she had been the Head Carer at Orchid Hill Academy and was currently working as a medic for the Orchid troops. This constituted as a betrayal of their area in their minds, and warranted his death.
So when Angel flew home, it was not for a calming break, but for the burial of her father.
It doesn't need to be stated how she felt about the death of her father - actually, like any young woman who has just lost her father, her grief was so great that there aren't enough words to describe it. But what can be said is that it instilled in her an even greater cause to fight for the Orchid cause - her dad had paid for his support for the school with his life. It was the least Angel could do to return to her post and help those who otherwise would pay with their lives. It would be something she could do to make him proud of her, and to help her feel like she could atone for the guilt she felt at knowing that her father had been killed because of her abilities. So she returned to base in Andorra as soon as the funeral was over and she had found someone to rent The Forge to.
Not long after her return, there was an eight-month period of relative peace, and a rotation took place between the military hospital medics and the field medics, meaning that Angel ended up working in the hospital for a short while. But this phase of peace was ended by a car bomb explosion in Auvinyà, with two casualties, two young soldiers on routine patrol, Privates Gareth Smith and Chris Higgins. Private Higgins came through with a head trauma and several shrapnel wounds, but after a few weeks in hospital, he was fine. Private Smith, on the other hand, did not fare so well, with an injury that resulted in the amputation of his right lower leg. It was Angel who was on duty when he came to from the anaesthesia and talked him through things, and it was Angel who brought him through his intensive aftercare; it was Angel who became his friend in a passive ignorance of the number one rule of survival as a medic – don’t become involved with a patient. She couldn’t help it – he was a friendly, charismatic and sunny guy, whose handling of his new disability was nothing short of admirable. It wasn’t hard to like him, and seeing as he was the only person who was in the hospital longer than she was, it didn’t take long for her to get to know him. Know him, respect him, like him. It was an accidental friendship. One minute, she was changing the bandages on his leg and the next she was staying late after her shifts chatting to him about nothings, somethings, and later everythings. It was stupid to become so involved seeing as he’d probably be moved, but the problem was that Angel didn’t realise that she was becoming involved until she was eyeball deep. But Gareth wasn’t moved, he stayed in Sant Julià de Lòria Military Hospital for months through his aftercare rather than being sent back to a military hospital in England, which gave even more time for their newfound friendship to blossom. He frequently teased her, calling her his “healing angel”, but coining the never-before-used nickname of Angie for her, which, surprisingly, she didn’t mind.
So the Healing Angel threw herself into his recovery more than she had ever done for any patient, choosing to stay in the hospital rather than go back to the field. Literally, she was beside him and supporting him through every long, painful step of his recovery. She changed his bandages until the stump healed. She held his arm as he took his first unsteady steps on his prosthetic leg. She stayed by his bedside until he fell asleep. She threw herself into every stage of his recovery in a way that she'd never done before and didn't quite understand. At first, Angel put it down to her trying to focus on something other than the lives they'd lost, the things she'd seen - everything she had needed to recover from when she'd tried to go home. And it just so happened that in that, she'd made a friend.
Eventually, though, came the time when Gareth had to leave the military base and return home to England, though he planned to rejoin the army at a later stage, once he had become used to life with one leg. Angel knew she'd miss him, and it was only then that she admitted what had really happened. She'd become involved with a patient. And not only involved. She'd fallen in love.
Gareth knew it too, it turned out. It was pure luck that the end of Angel's tour coincided with his return. And pure luck that things had calmed down a little - enough for her to feel that she could take a little time out. Finally recover from the things she'd seen. Go to university, and take the nursing degree in London that she'd always wanted. Hold down this relationship in a way that wasn't in the middle of a military hospital between nurse and patient.
So, they did just that. Oh, of course, there was still an element of that there - Gareth was still recovering, and Angel was the best person to help him. Bonds grew, love flourished, and before they knew it, over a year had passed and they were planning their quiet wedding in Kent.
It was a happy relationship. It was a happy engagement. However, somewhere along the line early into their marriage, they started to realise that somewhere, something wasn't right.
Oh, they still loved each other, of course. Angel had never loved anyone like this, and it wasn't that she didn't want to be married to him - she wanted the forever together. And, judging from Gareth's words and the emotions she could feel pulsing from him, so did he. But somewhere, as his recovery time was up, he stopped needing her. Angel didn't know why, or how - but all she knew was that what she was feeling from him was different, but not in a good way. Their relationship, their marriage was one based not just on love but on need - Gareth needed Angel, and Angel needed him - but more than that, she needed him to need her. They still loved each other, they still wanted each other, but that loss of need revealed cracks that they had never noticed before. Little things that had seemed irrelevant before, and while they were irritating, probably would not have been enough to derail what at the time, had felt like what would be the perfect marriage. But thanks to her empathy. Angel could feel the need slipping away, but she didn't know why. She had no idea, because that was what empathy was limited to. No explanations, no reasons. It was the most ridiculous reason for a marriage to break up, but the disappearance of the need, and the fact that they both knew about it, was what showed them that they weren't suited for a life with each other.
To be honest, the whole process was a bit of a blur for Angel. It hurt, though. It hurt in a raw, red way, and while she can accept that in the long run, it wouldn't have worked out, she still blames herself for the break up. Still, in the year since her divorce, she's fallen out of love with Gareth - something that proved that the love for them really did spring out of need, and that was an unstable foundation. Once that need is gone... what is there?
Of course, she hates being divorced. Especially since she's only 24. There's a stereotype which Angel hates. She hates the loneliness, and in spite of her not being in love with him anymore, she misses Gareth.
After the divorce, Angel planned to return to the Field Medics, and go out to wherever they felt she was needed most. But, just as the same luck that brought her home would have it, while Angel was filling out the Field Medic forms, a letter arrived from Professor Hoodham at Orchid Hill, asking her to return to her school in a time of crisis, as ward sister of the hospital wing (now that her degree had finished - thanks to her experience, she'd been able to fast-track it) and advisor to the Carers. Angel had heard all the stories on the news. Kidnaps, fires, and the deaths of too many schoolchildren.
She didn't even need to think about her answer. The reapplication forms to the Field Medics were torn up, and Angel was back on her way to help the school that she loved.
Gifts:
Obviously, as a successful nurse, medic and Head of the Carers, Angel has the standard required power of healing, which works in much the same way as anybody else's. Most things can be healed, unless of course, there are changes to the DNA, such as cancer, or the injury is too great, or has been there too long... even magic, just like medicine, has its limitations.
However, while this healing made it possible for her identity as a healer and nurse, the power that moulded her into who she is is her empathy. Any emotion, any person - Angel can feel it. She grew up attuned to her father's grief and longing for her mother, she has spent years being surrounded by people's pain. It's why she is so good with people, it's why she's so good at understanding the heart and the mind and the power of emotions. It's why she's so easy to talk to, and it's something that has meant being a caring person was inevitable. It's why it's easy for her to solve problems, to help people. But it's why she finds it difficult to cope with certain things once they break through her barrier. It's why there are some things she just cannot heal without the help of her fourth power.
It's also why her marriage was so painful for her. And not just her marriage - any relationship that failed, from her first boyfriend, Morgan to her husband. So, empathy has played a major part in Angel's life, and sometimes it is tempting to wonder what would have happened had she had any other power.
Her third power is something that came in usual around her home and helping her father with work - metal. Obviously, Angel could be a great help in the forge, with whatever work was required - banister railings, horse shoes, even up to the armour they were once asked to create for a museum exhibition. It's why even now, Angel can still take her hand to anything metal that is broken and either fix it or shape it into something new.
Upon becoming Head of the Carers, Angel was given the power of sedation - she can place anybody under sedation just by laying a hand on their forehead. This can range from a calm feeling passing over the person to something similar to general anaesthesia, and it's something that Angel needs to use quite often on patients, to whatever extent - though never on someone who isn't ill or in severe distress, but you wouldn't believe how great temptation can be. She always felt that it was something that she was given to try to combat her empathy - as said before, Angel can feel pain just like any other emotion, and when she's faced with people in unimaginable pain... well, it's not unimaginable to her. Luckily, over the years she has become more adept at blocking her empathy - well, no, it's nothing to do with luck, just pure survival instinct. But sometimes, things still break through even when she doesn't want them to, so sedation is necessary to not only stop the patient from being in extreme pain, but to allow Angel to work.
Pets:
She had a pet chicken called Leah when she was little, but hasn't had a pet since she was about 5.
Other:
Group:
Ex-Head of the Carers (2000 - 2003)
Currently Ward Sister of Orchid Hill Academy Hospital Wing (2009)
Angela "Angel" Gwen Smith
Age:
24
Physical Description:
Standing at a perfectly average five foot five, Angel cuts what she's always seen as a perfectly average figure, with her slender but softly rounded body, curly dark hair with a tendency to frizz and muddy brown eyes. But Angel has never been the type to mind feeling average; simply because she always had far too much to think about that it didn't occur to her to worry about it. Besides, she looks fine and she knows it - after all, why would someone have married her if she didn't look fine? Gareth told her she was beautiful, and that was good enough for her. Yes, she has her few unsightly scars on her limbs but with the things that she has seen and the places she has been, Angel just knows that she's lucky to have them intact, never mind how pretty they look. However, she does love her skin. It's dark, creamy, never dry, never oily, and never once has she had a breakout of spots, even in the awkward teenage years. It's definitely her favourite physical attribute.
Other than that, there aren't any other features worth particular mention, but her facial features are put together in such a way that her face shows the underlying soft warmth of her character, especially when she smiles.
Clothing Description:
Basic, casual, practical. Again, ninety per cent of the time Angel is far too busy to put much thought into what she wears. On duty or in hospitals, obviously she is in her nursing uniform - whether that is the uniform of the Orchid Hill Carers or that of the Field Medics. Her work still influences what she wears off duty, as it's a common occurrence for her to have to administer treatment. There's no such thing as a work/life balance - work is your life. End of! She rarely has time to dress up anymore, so at the minute her wardrobe is made up of practical boots and flat shoes, shirts, jumpers, etc, the standard things. Now that she's involved in teaching work, it made sense to wear slightly more formal clothes for teaching, but most of her time is spent in the ward.
She doesn't wear jewellery unless it's for something more formal than day to day life, preferring to wear a simple watch (accompanied by the fob watch that she was given by her father when she was made Head of the Carers when she's on duty) and her ruby engagement ring on the ring finger of her right hand. Obviously she doesn't wear her wedding ring any longer - that gold band is kept in its box in a locked drawer. When they divorced, Gareth didn't want the rings back, so she keeps wearing the engagement ring as a reminder of the mess she made, so she'll not do it again (not as part of a Miss Havisham effect, as was suggested by a concerned colleague). But it's more that - Gareth, the marriage and divorce are such a huge part of her life that it would feel strange not to acknowledge it at all. And it's not just a reminder of that - before it all turned sour, it was the happiest point of her life and she's not bitter enough to completely ignore that.
Personality:
As a former Head of Carers and a nurse with the power of empathy, it shouldn't need to be stated that Angel's principal character trait is a genuinely caring nature.
(ooc: I'm aware that this is cheating, but I think the rest of the intro makes her personality more than perfectly clear, so if this is okay, would I be able to leave this section out? *holds out basket of muffins*)
History:
Angel was born in a small rural town in the middle of Kent, England to Thomas and Gwen Campbell, both in their early forties at the time of her birth. She was a late, much wished-for baby, and one that they thought would never come, after several miscarriages and failed IVF attempts. But, eventually, luck came into it, and Angela Gwen Campbell was born. A miracle, they called it. That's why they called her Angela - she was to be their little Angel, the blessing they'd been brought later on in their lives just as they thought time had run out.
It wasn't an easy pregnancy, though. Gwen suffered from several conditions throughout it, and the labour most certainly was not easy. In the end, despite her insistence on a natural birth, Angel was delivered by C-section. Not that that was the end of it. Haemorrhages, tearing, infections, you name it.
In the end, she survived through that. It was the infection on the C-section incision that led to septicaemia that killed Gwen. Angel never knew her mother.
Her father made up for it acting as both parents though. Angel was always going to be a daddy's girl, but being raised by him single-handedly had a great effect on her relationship with him. Instead of being one of the children who struggled through their upbringing with a deceased parent, Angel blossomed under her father's care, as a good student and a happy child. A happy but empathetic child, even before the advent of her powers. She always had a sense when people were unhappy and were hiding it, and this was something she was always painfully aware of when it came to her father. She still says it now - he never got over her mother, and even his little angel could never take that grief away from him. That was when her compulsion to care for people began. She always tried to make him happier.
Still, Angel had a happy childhood, running about the countryside and her father's forge. The Campbell family had a long history as blacksmiths, and even with the incredibly low demand for smiths, Tom still managed to do reasonably well with a mixture of the traditional forge work for museums and the like, cast iron banisters and work as a farrier. With Angel's metal power, she turned out to be a great help around the forge with her father and his assistants, although her powers didn't quite run to cast iron, that was their job.
Living in a non-magical area, the arrival of Angel's powers should have come as a surprise were it not for the fact that her mother, a Healer, had been gifted. Tom was not gifted, but knew enough to be able to show her how to control it, and above all: to keep the magic secret. It wasn't only a non-magical area, it was a fiercely anti-Orchid Hill area, where protests against the Orchid-affiliated were frequently staged, along with operations branded as "witch-hunts" by her father. These weren't just people that disagreed with the policy taken by Orchid Hill, but people who felt that the lives of their families and friends were being taken by the war caused by what this school believed in. Anyone magical was shunned, and anyone affiliated with the school faced a far worse fate. Secrecy was vital.
But, eventually, like her mother and most other magical children, she went to Orchid Hill Academy for the Gifted when she turned of age, leaving behind her beloved father to go to school. She was placed immediately in the Carers, and with her gentle nature and healing, thrived at it, to the stage when she became Head of the Carers in September 2000. That was when she was asked out by a friend of hers, Morgan Collins, who became Head of the Academics and Angel's first love. His kind, shy personality matched hers perfectly, and they had a happy relationship until the tensions of their both being Heads of groups became too much, as Morgan's head filled with battle plans and Angel's with injuries, causing a certain level of distraction and tension. It didn't help that Morgan was currently having trouble with the Head of the Warriors, James Bradley, so whenever she saw him, his tension level was so high that it broke through her empathy barrier and began affecting her. His anger became her anger, which was added to the stress she had already, and she had nowhere to direct it but at him. So when this resulted in several breakdowns and arguments that did not suit their quiet natures, they decided they despite how good their relationship be, they were better off as friends as the relationship where they were both so constantly stressed and tense was affecting them so badly.
And stay friends they did, even while they were getting over each other, and it lasted through the three happy years where they were all thriving Heads, in a a thriving school, aided along by what were going to become legendary battle plans made by James and Morgan as they learned to work together. Not one life was lost in those years, and for the most part, it was a happy place to be.
But of course, as much as they loved it there, they couldn't stay forever. Eventually, they came to their final year, and that year flew in - so before she knew it, Morgan was off to Iceland, James to the Sahara, and Angel was making her farewell speech to her Carers, hugging Nurse Gornray goodbye and looking into the void of the future, wondering where to go next. She could have left it all, of course. She could have left the realm of the Orchid War, to go to university and take a nursing degree, get married and have two-point-four children - essentially, to live a normal life untainted by war.
However, having spent the last several years of her life working towards a cause, Angel wasn't about to give up now, so she signed up as a nursing aide on the Andorra front. After working so many years and so many battles, she felt that with that experience, she had seen it all, seen enough to know what this would be like.
But however bad the Orchid Hill frontier fighting could get, Angel had seen few deaths, thanks to the legendary Bradley-Collins partnership. And however much people could cheat in their battles, compared to this, Orchid Hill fighting was positively clean. This was war, and this was dirty.
On Angel's first day, she was placed in an ambulance, and she didn't even have time to familiarise herself in her new surroundings when the first casualty came in. 22 y.o. male, shrapnel from a bomb blast through his chest. Dead on arrival. Swiftly followed by more casualties from the same blast, all horrific - contusions, punctures, burns.
Seven deaths.
And this is how it continued. Under the stressful conditions, Angel was making the best of her capabilities - as an ex-Head of the Carers, she thrived under stress and she was in her element here. But, over time the soft optimistic light in her eyes started to dwindle to be replaced by a harder, colder blankness. Her face took on that look that they all had, a look born of something between horror and fear. That was how you coped with it all, you see - you pushed it back, and you ignored all the atrocities you saw every day.
Sometimes, though, there were days where things came along that shattered that pretence. Horrible things happened each day, but sometimes, one of those things could break through the protective shell of numbness. Like the day two years into her work. Like the death of a passing child, shot down in the crossfire. She was two years old, beautiful, and completely uninvolved in this fight. She could have had a long untainted life ahead of her. Like the injury that followed the dead toddler. Imagine this. Stretch your left out in front of you. Do you see how it follows out from your knee? Imagine the bone of your shin, the tibia, pushed back with a force so great it sends the bone shattering through your kneecap in a pixie dust shower of bone shards and blood. The force is so great that it is not enough to stop there. As the bone starts to shift, your knee begins to recoil towards your chest. So, when the bone breaks through the keen, the first place for it to go is straight through your ribs into the organs in your pleural cavity. But some freak twist of fate means that you're perfectly alert and aware through it all.
This happened to a 25 year old boy from the troops. He'd been to see Angel a few times before this, for minor cuts and bruises. His name was Matt Lewis, and he was a bright-eyed, charming young man with a young, pretty fiancée waiting at home for him to finish his tour so they could have a June wedding in their local church, complete with cream, gold-edged placecards. He'd been so sarcastic about those placecards when he told Angel about the wedding, but with that hope for the future in his eyes and a smile lighting up his face as he talked of his Jenny. And with one impact blow, his leg was now shot right through his chest.
He died that day at 3.47 p.m.
After that, Angel had felt that she needed a break from all of it, to go home to The Forge to be with her father and try to get over the things that she had witnessed. So she applied for, and was granted leave, before booking the flight home, for the first time in a while looking forward to something - to seeing her beloved dad again. However, shortly before she boarded the security-protected flight to London Gatwick, she was met with the news that her father had been shot by an anti-magic mob, who had found out that not only was Tom Campbell's late wife magical, his daughter was gifted - and not only that, she had been the Head Carer at Orchid Hill Academy and was currently working as a medic for the Orchid troops. This constituted as a betrayal of their area in their minds, and warranted his death.
So when Angel flew home, it was not for a calming break, but for the burial of her father.
It doesn't need to be stated how she felt about the death of her father - actually, like any young woman who has just lost her father, her grief was so great that there aren't enough words to describe it. But what can be said is that it instilled in her an even greater cause to fight for the Orchid cause - her dad had paid for his support for the school with his life. It was the least Angel could do to return to her post and help those who otherwise would pay with their lives. It would be something she could do to make him proud of her, and to help her feel like she could atone for the guilt she felt at knowing that her father had been killed because of her abilities. So she returned to base in Andorra as soon as the funeral was over and she had found someone to rent The Forge to.
Not long after her return, there was an eight-month period of relative peace, and a rotation took place between the military hospital medics and the field medics, meaning that Angel ended up working in the hospital for a short while. But this phase of peace was ended by a car bomb explosion in Auvinyà, with two casualties, two young soldiers on routine patrol, Privates Gareth Smith and Chris Higgins. Private Higgins came through with a head trauma and several shrapnel wounds, but after a few weeks in hospital, he was fine. Private Smith, on the other hand, did not fare so well, with an injury that resulted in the amputation of his right lower leg. It was Angel who was on duty when he came to from the anaesthesia and talked him through things, and it was Angel who brought him through his intensive aftercare; it was Angel who became his friend in a passive ignorance of the number one rule of survival as a medic – don’t become involved with a patient. She couldn’t help it – he was a friendly, charismatic and sunny guy, whose handling of his new disability was nothing short of admirable. It wasn’t hard to like him, and seeing as he was the only person who was in the hospital longer than she was, it didn’t take long for her to get to know him. Know him, respect him, like him. It was an accidental friendship. One minute, she was changing the bandages on his leg and the next she was staying late after her shifts chatting to him about nothings, somethings, and later everythings. It was stupid to become so involved seeing as he’d probably be moved, but the problem was that Angel didn’t realise that she was becoming involved until she was eyeball deep. But Gareth wasn’t moved, he stayed in Sant Julià de Lòria Military Hospital for months through his aftercare rather than being sent back to a military hospital in England, which gave even more time for their newfound friendship to blossom. He frequently teased her, calling her his “healing angel”, but coining the never-before-used nickname of Angie for her, which, surprisingly, she didn’t mind.
So the Healing Angel threw herself into his recovery more than she had ever done for any patient, choosing to stay in the hospital rather than go back to the field. Literally, she was beside him and supporting him through every long, painful step of his recovery. She changed his bandages until the stump healed. She held his arm as he took his first unsteady steps on his prosthetic leg. She stayed by his bedside until he fell asleep. She threw herself into every stage of his recovery in a way that she'd never done before and didn't quite understand. At first, Angel put it down to her trying to focus on something other than the lives they'd lost, the things she'd seen - everything she had needed to recover from when she'd tried to go home. And it just so happened that in that, she'd made a friend.
Eventually, though, came the time when Gareth had to leave the military base and return home to England, though he planned to rejoin the army at a later stage, once he had become used to life with one leg. Angel knew she'd miss him, and it was only then that she admitted what had really happened. She'd become involved with a patient. And not only involved. She'd fallen in love.
Gareth knew it too, it turned out. It was pure luck that the end of Angel's tour coincided with his return. And pure luck that things had calmed down a little - enough for her to feel that she could take a little time out. Finally recover from the things she'd seen. Go to university, and take the nursing degree in London that she'd always wanted. Hold down this relationship in a way that wasn't in the middle of a military hospital between nurse and patient.
So, they did just that. Oh, of course, there was still an element of that there - Gareth was still recovering, and Angel was the best person to help him. Bonds grew, love flourished, and before they knew it, over a year had passed and they were planning their quiet wedding in Kent.
It was a happy relationship. It was a happy engagement. However, somewhere along the line early into their marriage, they started to realise that somewhere, something wasn't right.
Oh, they still loved each other, of course. Angel had never loved anyone like this, and it wasn't that she didn't want to be married to him - she wanted the forever together. And, judging from Gareth's words and the emotions she could feel pulsing from him, so did he. But somewhere, as his recovery time was up, he stopped needing her. Angel didn't know why, or how - but all she knew was that what she was feeling from him was different, but not in a good way. Their relationship, their marriage was one based not just on love but on need - Gareth needed Angel, and Angel needed him - but more than that, she needed him to need her. They still loved each other, they still wanted each other, but that loss of need revealed cracks that they had never noticed before. Little things that had seemed irrelevant before, and while they were irritating, probably would not have been enough to derail what at the time, had felt like what would be the perfect marriage. But thanks to her empathy. Angel could feel the need slipping away, but she didn't know why. She had no idea, because that was what empathy was limited to. No explanations, no reasons. It was the most ridiculous reason for a marriage to break up, but the disappearance of the need, and the fact that they both knew about it, was what showed them that they weren't suited for a life with each other.
To be honest, the whole process was a bit of a blur for Angel. It hurt, though. It hurt in a raw, red way, and while she can accept that in the long run, it wouldn't have worked out, she still blames herself for the break up. Still, in the year since her divorce, she's fallen out of love with Gareth - something that proved that the love for them really did spring out of need, and that was an unstable foundation. Once that need is gone... what is there?
Of course, she hates being divorced. Especially since she's only 24. There's a stereotype which Angel hates. She hates the loneliness, and in spite of her not being in love with him anymore, she misses Gareth.
After the divorce, Angel planned to return to the Field Medics, and go out to wherever they felt she was needed most. But, just as the same luck that brought her home would have it, while Angel was filling out the Field Medic forms, a letter arrived from Professor Hoodham at Orchid Hill, asking her to return to her school in a time of crisis, as ward sister of the hospital wing (now that her degree had finished - thanks to her experience, she'd been able to fast-track it) and advisor to the Carers. Angel had heard all the stories on the news. Kidnaps, fires, and the deaths of too many schoolchildren.
She didn't even need to think about her answer. The reapplication forms to the Field Medics were torn up, and Angel was back on her way to help the school that she loved.
Gifts:
Obviously, as a successful nurse, medic and Head of the Carers, Angel has the standard required power of healing, which works in much the same way as anybody else's. Most things can be healed, unless of course, there are changes to the DNA, such as cancer, or the injury is too great, or has been there too long... even magic, just like medicine, has its limitations.
However, while this healing made it possible for her identity as a healer and nurse, the power that moulded her into who she is is her empathy. Any emotion, any person - Angel can feel it. She grew up attuned to her father's grief and longing for her mother, she has spent years being surrounded by people's pain. It's why she is so good with people, it's why she's so good at understanding the heart and the mind and the power of emotions. It's why she's so easy to talk to, and it's something that has meant being a caring person was inevitable. It's why it's easy for her to solve problems, to help people. But it's why she finds it difficult to cope with certain things once they break through her barrier. It's why there are some things she just cannot heal without the help of her fourth power.
It's also why her marriage was so painful for her. And not just her marriage - any relationship that failed, from her first boyfriend, Morgan to her husband. So, empathy has played a major part in Angel's life, and sometimes it is tempting to wonder what would have happened had she had any other power.
Her third power is something that came in usual around her home and helping her father with work - metal. Obviously, Angel could be a great help in the forge, with whatever work was required - banister railings, horse shoes, even up to the armour they were once asked to create for a museum exhibition. It's why even now, Angel can still take her hand to anything metal that is broken and either fix it or shape it into something new.
Upon becoming Head of the Carers, Angel was given the power of sedation - she can place anybody under sedation just by laying a hand on their forehead. This can range from a calm feeling passing over the person to something similar to general anaesthesia, and it's something that Angel needs to use quite often on patients, to whatever extent - though never on someone who isn't ill or in severe distress, but you wouldn't believe how great temptation can be. She always felt that it was something that she was given to try to combat her empathy - as said before, Angel can feel pain just like any other emotion, and when she's faced with people in unimaginable pain... well, it's not unimaginable to her. Luckily, over the years she has become more adept at blocking her empathy - well, no, it's nothing to do with luck, just pure survival instinct. But sometimes, things still break through even when she doesn't want them to, so sedation is necessary to not only stop the patient from being in extreme pain, but to allow Angel to work.
Pets:
She had a pet chicken called Leah when she was little, but hasn't had a pet since she was about 5.
Other:
Group:
Ex-Head of the Carers (2000 - 2003)
Currently Ward Sister of Orchid Hill Academy Hospital Wing (2009)
