07-20-2018, 06:27 PM
"Then how did you know I'd missed--?"
The appointment with her father, abruptly cut from her tongue. It was the only reason anyone might have had to worry about where she was, and Alvis' presence confirmed the puppetry of a meddling parent. She'd assumed the rest. Jay couldn't have known where to find her; nor could he have known the trouble she'd brought down on her own head. He'd been hired to extract her from danger once. And he'd arrived alongside Jared. She'd only followed the logical progression.
"No. I didn't know that."
Her voice softened under the weight of truth, a bare murmur. "Jay, I never heard from you the whole time I was in France. Then you turn up when I'm..."
She trailed off, unwilling to articulate what had happened in the tunnels. Seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but hindsight framed the utter stupidity, as it so often did. She had no friends in Moscow; had never set foot on its soil before that day. "What else was I supposed to think?"
He'd turned away. It was the point she expected he would walk away; she felt it like chill in her bones, an old and familiar melody. Offence corded him tight with frustration, and she found herself surprised at the strength of his reaction. She hadn't meant it as an accusation; it had been exoneration. Only now everything she'd thought she knew seemed slippery with misunderstanding. He wasn't the only one who chose to lie to himself, but Natalie was unwilling to confront that vulnerability in herself. Men weren't safe houses for hearts; she'd already learned that the hard way. Jay was no different, and yet every rational thought arming her with distance clouded into uncertainty with the smallest pressure.
He closed the distance. A glaze about the eye, restless of soul. She'd rattled something loose, unsure what or how. Ironic since she'd meant to reassure him with a shade of hopeful truth, but her words touched a nerve instead; one he struggled to explain, like he stared into the jaws of an abyss and she were a thousand miles away. Though he tried anyway. Measure by desperate measure. "He gave you a brotherhood,"
she said quietly. But a fire was banking in her gaze.
"Brandon told me he couldn't save the world alone. It was about the only thing he said that we agreed on -- because the man is completely obtuse. For him only the goal matters, not the means of achieving it. He and Danjou; they had no right doing what they did. Your life isn't something to be bartered for some greater good by men playing god. They only had to ask."
Her stubborn streak sank deep. She spoke ardently. With the same protectiveness that defended the broken boy who murdered his best friend for a war that wasn't his. The same defiance that brought her toe to toe with Lt. Falomi to buy time until Danjou dragged her away. And the same dogged determination that placed her on the embassy steps while Wallace-Johnson's army fuzzed the horizon, not even sure if the gift would answer to the call of desperation.
He was crumbling, and she didn't even know why. The cracks fissured. The weight of his sister. The other demons he chose not to share.
He didn't want to be found.
His words riddled doubt through the motivation that pushed her to find him. Like nothing she could have done meant anything at all and he knew it. Like he dared her to admit him a lost cause. She could have read futility and pulled away from it like a scald, but instead she only heard honesty. Even painful, she appreciated it for what it was. He offered her something bleak, but she rose to it like a challenge. Because even if he didn't believe it, he was worth fighting for.
He stood close, the whisper of his words like smoke. The broadness of him swarmed her vision; the black that marked him now. She ran her fingers against the pin at his chest in faint enquiry.
"What do you think I see when I look at you, Jay?"
Her touch found the chain that bound the pin, warm from the heat of him. "A soldier? You are one, of course, and it means you walk a hard road. You do ugly, necessary things, and they cling like shadows as dark as this new uniform. But we all have shadows."
He should recognise that characteristic bluntness by now. A sharp tongue armed for cruelty. But when her eyes upturned there was nothing cold in them. She accepted the darkness just as readily as she saw the light.
"What I see is the man who nursed an abandoned kitten in the middle of a warzone. The one who refused morphine because the boy who slashed his hamstring was in more pain. I see hands that sought to smooth away a hurt just because they happened to notice it."
Her hand curled over, exposing the palm and its gouged crescents. A rueful smile. "Even though it was already too late."
Her fingers closed slowly then, like maybe she reconsidered the self-exposure. There was more she could say, but it laid too much bare of a connection she mostly considered to be in her head. "I wish I could have spared you whatever happened to make you think this is the only way."
She hadn't meant to push him so hard, nor to rub salt in clearly tender wounds. She didn't know what had happened to him; the training he had endured on Brandon's whim of moulding guardians from men. It seemed plain he would not tell her. Nor was it the time to piece that damage back together, not when time was a commodity they could not buy back, and it was running out.
Instead she wrinkled her nose. Weariness crimped her eyes as she dispelled the tension, pulling back from the precipice of admitting too much. She ought to untangle her hand but found little inclination to move away. "That sounded far less saccharine in my head. I couldn't do anything. But I don't regret trying. I don't regret being here now."
The appointment with her father, abruptly cut from her tongue. It was the only reason anyone might have had to worry about where she was, and Alvis' presence confirmed the puppetry of a meddling parent. She'd assumed the rest. Jay couldn't have known where to find her; nor could he have known the trouble she'd brought down on her own head. He'd been hired to extract her from danger once. And he'd arrived alongside Jared. She'd only followed the logical progression.
"No. I didn't know that."
Her voice softened under the weight of truth, a bare murmur. "Jay, I never heard from you the whole time I was in France. Then you turn up when I'm..."
She trailed off, unwilling to articulate what had happened in the tunnels. Seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but hindsight framed the utter stupidity, as it so often did. She had no friends in Moscow; had never set foot on its soil before that day. "What else was I supposed to think?"
He'd turned away. It was the point she expected he would walk away; she felt it like chill in her bones, an old and familiar melody. Offence corded him tight with frustration, and she found herself surprised at the strength of his reaction. She hadn't meant it as an accusation; it had been exoneration. Only now everything she'd thought she knew seemed slippery with misunderstanding. He wasn't the only one who chose to lie to himself, but Natalie was unwilling to confront that vulnerability in herself. Men weren't safe houses for hearts; she'd already learned that the hard way. Jay was no different, and yet every rational thought arming her with distance clouded into uncertainty with the smallest pressure.
He closed the distance. A glaze about the eye, restless of soul. She'd rattled something loose, unsure what or how. Ironic since she'd meant to reassure him with a shade of hopeful truth, but her words touched a nerve instead; one he struggled to explain, like he stared into the jaws of an abyss and she were a thousand miles away. Though he tried anyway. Measure by desperate measure. "He gave you a brotherhood,"
she said quietly. But a fire was banking in her gaze.
"Brandon told me he couldn't save the world alone. It was about the only thing he said that we agreed on -- because the man is completely obtuse. For him only the goal matters, not the means of achieving it. He and Danjou; they had no right doing what they did. Your life isn't something to be bartered for some greater good by men playing god. They only had to ask."
Her stubborn streak sank deep. She spoke ardently. With the same protectiveness that defended the broken boy who murdered his best friend for a war that wasn't his. The same defiance that brought her toe to toe with Lt. Falomi to buy time until Danjou dragged her away. And the same dogged determination that placed her on the embassy steps while Wallace-Johnson's army fuzzed the horizon, not even sure if the gift would answer to the call of desperation.
He was crumbling, and she didn't even know why. The cracks fissured. The weight of his sister. The other demons he chose not to share.
He didn't want to be found.
His words riddled doubt through the motivation that pushed her to find him. Like nothing she could have done meant anything at all and he knew it. Like he dared her to admit him a lost cause. She could have read futility and pulled away from it like a scald, but instead she only heard honesty. Even painful, she appreciated it for what it was. He offered her something bleak, but she rose to it like a challenge. Because even if he didn't believe it, he was worth fighting for.
He stood close, the whisper of his words like smoke. The broadness of him swarmed her vision; the black that marked him now. She ran her fingers against the pin at his chest in faint enquiry.
"What do you think I see when I look at you, Jay?"
Her touch found the chain that bound the pin, warm from the heat of him. "A soldier? You are one, of course, and it means you walk a hard road. You do ugly, necessary things, and they cling like shadows as dark as this new uniform. But we all have shadows."
He should recognise that characteristic bluntness by now. A sharp tongue armed for cruelty. But when her eyes upturned there was nothing cold in them. She accepted the darkness just as readily as she saw the light.
"What I see is the man who nursed an abandoned kitten in the middle of a warzone. The one who refused morphine because the boy who slashed his hamstring was in more pain. I see hands that sought to smooth away a hurt just because they happened to notice it."
Her hand curled over, exposing the palm and its gouged crescents. A rueful smile. "Even though it was already too late."
Her fingers closed slowly then, like maybe she reconsidered the self-exposure. There was more she could say, but it laid too much bare of a connection she mostly considered to be in her head. "I wish I could have spared you whatever happened to make you think this is the only way."
She hadn't meant to push him so hard, nor to rub salt in clearly tender wounds. She didn't know what had happened to him; the training he had endured on Brandon's whim of moulding guardians from men. It seemed plain he would not tell her. Nor was it the time to piece that damage back together, not when time was a commodity they could not buy back, and it was running out.
Instead she wrinkled her nose. Weariness crimped her eyes as she dispelled the tension, pulling back from the precipice of admitting too much. She ought to untangle her hand but found little inclination to move away. "That sounded far less saccharine in my head. I couldn't do anything. But I don't regret trying. I don't regret being here now."