Ayla awoke to Durc's insistent crying.  She nudged him over to her breast, and he was nursing before she was even fully awake.  Her head ached, and the beginning sunlight stabbed at her closed eyelids.

A sudden shock of adrenalin roused her; she certainly hadn't fallen asleep outside! She opened her eyes, then shot to her feet in terror.  She stood by the edge of a stone river, with great beasts speeding along it faster than she had ever seen anything move.  They had shining eyes that seemed almost brighter than the early morning sun.  One of the beasts slowed, and moved across the river towards her.  She scrambled backwards, bumping into a strange barrier, and scrambled over it.  There seemed to be nowhere to hide, no trees to climb.

The highway shoulder just outside Reno is not really a good place to pull over, but Debbie Wilson is pretty concerned at - whatever she just caught a glimpse of. 

That's a woman with a baby. ...A very young woman, she's quite tall but a closer glimpse confirms that she's a teenager. A young teenager. With a baby. On the side of the freaking highway. Well, on the other side of the barrier now, looking terrified. And wearing - what even is that...? 

She parks mostly on the gravel, flips on the four-way flashers, and gets out of the car. "Miss, are you all right?" 

The beast stopped, and opened a great gap in its side, and a person got out! Ayla is still terrified, but now also deeply confused.  This person looks like no one Ayla has seen before, and is covered in even stranger clothing.  Is this what people of the Others look like?

She stands, frozen, but does not flee farther.

Debbie is also spectacularly confused. At least the poor girl isn't fleeing off into the desert. Has she been out here all night? How did she get here? Teen-with-baby makes her think runaway, but it seems almost impossible she made it this far from the city on foot. 

"I'm not going to hurt you," she says, though it's not entirely clear to her if the girl understands her at all. She takes a few steps closer, hands held palm-up, and then points at herself. "Debbie. My name is Debbie. Do you need help?" She's trying to get as good a look at the girl as she can. Is she hurt? Does the baby look okay? What on earth is she wearing? 

Ayla is wearing a cured hide wrapped around herself and secured with a long leather thong, with a bag made of the full cured pelt of a beaver with head and feet attached secured to her hip.  The baby is naked and tucked into the front of her wrap.

The woman is making incomprehensible noises, but she seems friendly? She pointed to herself, perhaps part of that was her name?

Ayla taps herself on the chest and says "Ayla."

"Ayla. That's a lovely name. And your baby?" Debbie points, and then makes a baby-rocking gesture with her arms. "...Ayla, you shouldn't be out here by yourself with a baby. I want to call someone to help you, okay?" 

The woman is making noises again.  The part at the beginning maaaybe sounds like her name? It's very fluid and elongated but it sounds like her name. 

This woman certainly won't know the language of her own clan.  Ayla signs in the formal, universal language of the Clan "This woman is Ayla. What is this place?"

The only verbal utterance is "Ayla"

...Debbie does not even entirely notice that Ayla is trying to communicating in sign, as opposed to just gesturing a weirdly emphatic amount. Is...Ayla trying to point out that she's saying her name wrong? She - can try again? 

"I'm going to call someone," she adds after a moment. Specifically, the police. She's not sure the police are the best people to call about this situation, but she's pulled over on the side of the highway twenty minute outside town and doesn't own a smartphone, and she definitely feels uncomfortable about bundling this kid into her own car. 

This woman does not seem to understand the universal language.  What.

...wait, didn't Iza and Creb say that she had had to learn it, when she first came to the clan? Maybe the Others don't know it?

What. Should she do.

She seemed to understand that Ayla's name was a name? Maybe she could get this woman's name?

Ayla again taps her own chest and says "Ayla," then taps the baby and says "Durc."  Then she points to the woman with a questioning expression.

"Debbie." So apparently that didn't get conveyed the first time. Debbie is so confused about where this child is from, and honestly feels pretty in over her head. She's...going to get out her phone and actually call the police, rather than having any more confusing not-conversation. 

"Duh-bee?" Ayla repeats.

She isn't sure the woman caught it though, she seems to be getting a strange rectangular object out of her bag and poking it intently.

Durc starts to fuss before she can do more to get the woman's attention so she starts nursing him again.

The dispatcher on the phone seems extremely skeptical of Debbie's claim that there's a young girl who looks maybe thirteen by herself, with a baby, apparently not an English speaker and wearing an animal skin, on the side of the highway halfway to New Washoe. Which is fair enough but Debbie is feeling quite stressed at this point and could do without the polite skepticism.

She can eventually confirm that they're sending a squad car, and...very awkwardly try to communicate this to the girl in mime? She feels like a complete idiot waving her hand above her head and making 'weeeooo' siren noises - clearly she's not cut out for a career with kids - but maybe she can get the point across that the police are going to come help her and the baby?

The woman - Duhbee - made a lot of incomprehensible noises into her box - which also made noises - and now she is making even more incomprehensible noises and waving her hands around in ways that make no sense.  Maybe she should try communicating again?

She repeats her previous pointing. "Ayla, Durc, Duh-bee?"

"Debbie!" Debbie agrees, pointing at herself again. "Ayla. Durk?" This has got to be some form of reassuring the baffling teenage mom by bonding with her, right? 

Ayla nods happily! She is also starting to notice that it has been a long time since she last ate, whereas Durc has been doing a lot of eating.  She mimes putting food in her mouth and chewing, and signs "food."

Oh no poor kid. Debbie doesn't have a lot to offer her and feels pretty weird about handing her an unmarked Tupperware of mac&cheese from her packed lunch, but she has a safely packaged-and-unopened granola bar and an apple. Here you go, poor hungry probably-horribly-mistreated teen mom from some sort of cult where they wear animal skins. (Though "Ayla" doesn't look especially underfed or unhealthy - slim and fit, yes, but very healthy.) 

It's going to be a while before the police get here to rescue her, and Debbie is kiiind of out of ideas for social interaction that work without a shared language. She can play peekaboo with the baby? She's honestly not very good with babies either but she's pretty sure they like peekaboo. 

Ayla recognizes the apple (though it's much bigger and, when she bites into it, sweeter than she's encountered before) but is absolutely mystified by the granola bar.  She looks at it from a few angles.  The woman gave it to her when she asked for food, can she eat it? She puts a corner in her mouth and bites down, then makes a face and takes it out.

Definitely a bizarre cult, who doesn't know what granola bars are. Debbie is kind of grossed out by the fact that it's now been in Ayla's mouth, but she tries to gesture to take it back, and can tear open the wrapper on the non-spit-contaminated side. 

...wow the baby is really ugly and weird-looking. That's probably a horrible thing to think, and honestly Debbie has always thought that people's social media photos of their newborns looked weird and gross, but this baby is too big to be a newborn and, yet, looks Like That. Not that Debbie would dream of saying anything, and she can awkwardly play peekaboo anyway. 

What is this substance the food was wrapped in? Ayla has never seen anything like it! She tries a bite of the food.

It reminds her a bit of the concentrated travel food made of grain and honey and dried fruit and fat, but it is so sweet!  She restrains her impulse to gobble it down and eats it slowly.

Durc is both fed enough and awake enough to spend several minutes being very interested by the game of peekaboo.  He might even exhibit his relatively-recently-acquired smiling skill.

Okay the smiling baby is at least kind of on the uglycute side of weird-and-ugly. Debbie experiences a brief intrusive thought of wishing she could get a video, which is just, wow, it would be so rude and weird to share a video on Facebook of Runaway Cult Teen Mom's baby. 

The police car drives up a few minutes later. It's not actually using the lights or sirens, and in fact drives past them - Debbie wasn't very able to give exact directions - before managing a turn that would definitely be illegal for non-police drivers, and pulling up just behind Debbie's car. 

A couple of men get out. They're both wearing different clothes from Debbie, dark and bulkier with a lot of pockets, and have walkie-talkies on their belts (the gun holsters were removed, they don't want to terrify the poor kid). One of them - the moderately overweight man with very curly red hair - waves and smiles at Ayla. 

There is another beast with more people.  Does that hand gesture mean something? Should she do it back?

Ayla clutches Durc closer and gives a halfhearted wave.

That does seem to be the expected response, here; the man relaxes slightly and his smiles looks a bit more genuine. The two of them approach her in as nonthreatening a manner as possible. 

"Her name is Ayla," Debbie says helpfully, still not really pronouncing it right. "The baby is Durk." 

One of them gets out a bulky reinforced clipboard. "Ayla, what city are you from? Where are your parents?" 

"- She also doesn't seem to speak any English," Debbie reminds them. 

...Fine. One of the officers goes back to the car and digs a map out of the glove compartment and shows it to Ayla. "Can you point to where you came here from?" 

What is this material? It is thin like leaves but large and brightly colored in complicated patterns.  Since it is being held out to her she takes it, and turns it over and over in her hands, examining it from different angles and figuring out how it folds up.

That sure does look like a kid who's never seen a map before! 

One of the police officers tries Spanish. This doesn't work either. It...looks a bit like she's making hand signs, maybe she's deaf? They can get someone who "speaks" ASL at the station, probably.

They'll try to nudge her in the direction of the car. There's a carseat for the baby. Can Ayla be coaxed to put Durc down in it and then let one of the officers do her seatbelt? 

Ayla is very confused and pretty terrified but also these are men and they seem to be giving her instructions so as long as they don’t try to take Durc out of reach she will try to do what they want?