2019-07-20 - This is Not What It Looks Like

It isn't the cop's usual black charger that shows up. The unmarked one with the bull bars mounted on the front and a cage cordoning off the back seat that Alexander had the dubious privilege of riding in once. Today, it's a dark blue heavy duty pickup truck that stops at the edge of the pier, in a spot that one might figure for parking if they squinted really hard. He kills the ignition and climbs out. Off duty and no suit in sight; faded jeans and a ratty tee shirt are the order of the day. A ballcap tugged over his unruly hair, jacket pulled over his blocky shoulders in a feeble effort to keep the rain off. He looks down the boardwalk for a moment, then jogs down the short stairs that lead to the dock.

The Surprise is spotted easily enough, along with the neatly-dressed Alexander loitering under the eaves. He squints at him a moment, gaze darting over his attire, then trudges in closer. Just to the very edge of the boat. "Clayton." He jerks his chin to indicate the man. "You look like shit. Why are you dressed up like that?"

Alexander isn't upset by the observation. It's manifestly true, after all. He rubs a tired hand over his face. "I had a date, Captain." And now he needs handcuffs. See, this all makes perfect sense, Ruiz. He pinches the bridge of his nose and studies Ruiz for a long moment. "You're off duty. And getting rained on. Come up." He gestures to the dry space under the eaves. His eyes scan the docks once, lingering on a few people who seem to be loitering despite the rain, and then on Ruiz's truck. "How are you? You seemed stressed when we texted before." It seems like a sincere question, but also one spoken as if reading off a script, a near monotone that has to fight through a layer of fatigue to be heard.

The fatigue is something Ruiz understands intimately. It's telegraphed in the tired creases at the corners of his eyes when he attempts to smile, and it's in the slouch of his shoulders as he steps onto the boat with a practiced little hop. He moves like someone who's worked around boats before. Or lived on them. Once he's under shelter of that little jut of roof, his dark eyes travel from it, to Alexander beside him. He thinks about the question for a time, and then replies, "Fine." He's not fine. The precinct's been kept on its toes, what with people dropping like flies in addition to whatever standard-issue shit they've already got going on. "Talk." His gaze follows the other man's, and he squints through the fine misting of rain that still manages to reach them here, out to the anemic signs of industry out on the pier proper.

As for dates that end in handcuffs, he looks surprisingly unbothered by that. Or maybe it isn't surprising at all.

There's a flicker of irritation at the curt response, bringing a sharpness to his features. Alexander's hands twine into one another, keeping the fingers from curling into fists, but his voice remains tired, even resigned. "Gray Harbor shit, Captain. An item which appears to create a growing obsession to possess it if one is exposed to it. I arrived for my meeting with Miss Reede, and after some investigation, discovered her in the throes of a fixation which was working its way up to violent action. I am keeping her safe until the situation can be resolved by other parties. She's sleeping." He continues to stare at Ruiz. "You look tired, not fine."

The cop looks back in time to spot Alexander with his fingers locked together, and that piqued look on his face. He blows a sigh out his nose with a flare of nostrils, and hunts in his pants pocket for a pack of smokes and his lighter. "Where is the item? What other parties?" Not 'what kind of drugs are you on' or 'you're under arrest for unlawful confinement', either of which he might be well within his rights to be saying right now. His voice softens, just a touch. "And I'd like to see her, please." See? He even remembered to say please. He lights up, brings it to his lips for a pull of smoke, then exhales away slowly while returning Alexander's scrutiny. "I'm fine," he repeats, knuckles touched to the man's shoulder.

It's either a mark of his regard for the police captain, or just how damned tired he is, that Alexander doesn't move away when Ruiz lightly touches his shoulder with his knuckles. "No one is fine," he responds, with some acerbic bite. "I'm not fine. You're not fine. Miss Reede is not fine. No one in this entire damned town is fine, and some times I think if we'd just fucking acknowledge that as a base line, we'd get a lot more done."

The questions, at least the first two, draw a shake of his head. "It's very contagious, Captain. And you have a gun. And I'm tired of tackling people with guns." The last, though, he jerks his head in a nod. He anticipated that this would be asked, and apparently is willing to allow it. So, Ruiz is ushered in, quietly, past a pulled out sleeper sofa, to a bedroom, where the door is opened just enough for him to see Isabella sleeping in the bed. She looks like she hasn't eaten for days, and possibly not slept, and there are emerging bruises on her wrists, but other than that she seems fine. Alexander closes the door. "I'd like her to sleep as long as possible." i.e. Don't wake her up.

He probably remembers too late that touching Alexander is verboten. That, or he simply does not give a shit. Nobody is fine; Clayton has the right of that, at least.

Talk of contagion gains a thoughtful look from the cop, and his footfalls are heavy on the deck as he trails along after the other man. He skirts around the sleeper sofa and draws to the entryway of the bedroom, fingertips on the door. Two inches nudged to three as he takes in the inert form of the woman slumbering on the bed. The bruises are noted. The hanging-on-by-a-thread. His jaw is tight when Alexander tugs the door shut again, and he scrapes his hand through his beard as he drifts away from it.

"What do you mean.. contagious? Explain, please." His jacket is unzipped and shrugged out of, tossed across the back of a chair. Shoulder rig and gun, probably nothing one would not expect to find on an off duty cop. "Has she been drugged?" is his next question, tone flat.

There are noises outside of her door.

She would have ignored it, but that veritable sixth sense that she has always had makes her stir, lashes fluttering before slowly opening, catching muted ribbons of light slipping through her one-way windows. Another beautiful summer day in Gray Harbor and honestly, she should feel refreshed, but her bones feel heavy and she feels feverish, feeling the call of it pulse from all the way across the city. The burning desire for it, the wanting, the needing. And while she and Alexander have managed to push past that with conversation the other night, the first few minutes of waking are absolutely insufferable - worse than any vice, worse than any addiction, and withdrawal is always ugly. It claws through every open nerve, every active cell.

Thoughts cascade through her groggy skull in a series of muddled plans, one after another quickly dismissed. Find a phone, somehow. Call Vivian. Get in touch with her somehow, or make noises to her current warden along the lines of having to see her. If she could just take a look at those pictures, she's certain she can figure it out and then, and then, and then...

"Hah..." she breathes. Deadly desire, so intense it is almost painful, the all-encompassing need blossoming in the back of her head like a thorny rose. Chocolate rattles in the box she holds in her hand when she sits up, when her free palm lifts to press the heel of it against her closed lids. She forces herself out of bed, pushing the covers aside. She needs a distraction; something, anything. Before she does what she knows she could do - open the windows, dive into the water, swim for shore and find some way to get to--

The door creaks, and is pushed open. "Alexander?" Her words are low, hoarse, clotted with the lingering wisps of sleep. "I'm-- "

He isn't alone. Green eyes and their glinting, golden shards fall on Ruiz and she stops in her tracks, confusion wreathing over her fine-boned features. She recognizes him, but what is he doing in her home?

"...officer," she greets, remembering herself, and so quick to recover. "We haven't met officially. My name is Isabella Reede." She is presently unashamed of her state, dressed in just a loose, sleeveless black jersey, matching shorts and thigh-high socks. Her hair is a mess, though to the archaeologist's credit, she seems to prefer it that way; it falls in tangled streamers, curled over the exposed, elegant lines of her throat and shoulders. With her bruises on her wrist and those heavy-lidded eyes, she looks like a crime waiting to happen, though whether it's the good kind, or the bad kind, it's presently up in the air.

"....would you like some coffee?" she continues. She is, at least, a considerate hostess.

Alexander is careful around Ruiz. Watching his expression with that flat, reptile look he gets when concentrating on something. And then watching his hands as he turns away and the jacket is unzipped. A grimace of faint distaste at the gun, but he doesn't say anything about it. His shoulders are hunched, posture wary, defensive, and tired. "Her obsession seems to have been caused by simply viewing photos of the object. Not even the object itself. Another person - I touched their mind, felt what they felt when they had contact with it, but that doesn't seem to have been enough. For a hook. So I'm not sure of the mechanism. For all I know, just describing it in enough detail is enough." His eyes move to a pill bottle over on one of the tables near the sleeper sofa. "No. It hasn't been necessary, yet." Very straightforward about that.

He turns at the creak of the door, going not rigid, but sliding into a perfectly acceptable defensive martial stance. "Isabella." He waits until he can see her, until he can assess her face and her features. Until he's pretty sure she didn't find a weapon in there. Then he relaxes. "Captain," he corrects. "Captain Javier Ruiz de la Vega. He has a more than acceptable number of names," he tells her, fairly earnest about it. Because that may, in fact, aside from the way Ruiz 'stands out' be the thing that got Alexander bothering him more than other cops. "I'm sorry. For waking you. The Captain and I were going to interview some people. But." A wave of his hand.

At the question about coffee, he turns a thoughtful look to Ruiz. "You should probably have some coffee. It's been a long few days." It's even said kindly.

The pill bottle, of all things, is what's noted by the cataloguing sweep of the cop's eyes. He's in the process of unholstering his firearm - a foreign-looking Sig Sauer P220 - as he prowls over to the table. The bottle is plucked between two fingers, turned over so he can study the label for a moment. Then it's set down again with a soft rattle. Manners? None whatsoever. If it even occurs to him that he's rifling about the home of a woman he's familiar with only through having glimpsed on two occasions.. well. It doesn't show.

The firearm he resumes divesting himself of, and sets it down beside the bottle of pills with a dull thunk. The rig is left in place; strap over each shoulder, and forming a T in the back. His dark eyes tick up briefly when his name is commented on, and then skim from Alexander to the recently roused Isabella with a critical look. No smile in sight; he drinks her in quietly, confusion met with something hard and cool and unyielding. "A pleasure, Miss Reede." He doesn't look pleased. Or bothered. Or much of anything, really. "Coffee would be." An abrupt silence. "Nice." Would it? "Gracias." Faded tee shirt under that gun rig. Jeans, battered hiking boots. Not on duty, at least.

"Captain." Isabella is quick to absorb the correction, curiosity banishing most of that lingering confusion. There is no smile from him today, but she remembers what it looks like - despite seized by a craving nothing can quell, her mind for detail retains its bladed edge. There's a glance at Alexander, able to make a guess, to read between the lines and fill in the blanks - if Ruiz is here, the investigator probably called him.

I'm sorry. For waking you.

"It's alright," she tells Alexander. "It wasn't a restful sleep. Dreamless, but...I feel like I didn't get any."

Green eyes fall on the gun on the island, a smile, however faint, tugging on the corners of her mouth, but she doesn't move anywhere close to it. "When Dad started teaching me how to shoot, it was with a Sig Sauer," she tells the men in a conversational fashion, her tired, slender form stopping at her galley kitchen to start preparing two cups of coffee, though she also retrieves a glass - the last thing Alexander needs is coffee. "The double action/single action trigger made it easy to learn."

She is American born, but there are certain aspects of her every day living that is distinctly European, marked by her many years of living not just out of Gray Harbor, but outside of the continent. She carefully boils water to just the right temperature and even while that is going, she is moving to the fridge, to see what she can put together to serve. She is utterly worthless in the kitchen, but there are things she can prepare. She settles for slicing up some cheese, and fruit, and even arranges them on a simple white plate.

Alexander tenses a bit when Ruiz puts down the firearm and picks up the bottle - it certainly didn't come from a proper prescription, and there is no label. There's also not a lot in it, maybe a few doses. He makes a noise when the firearm is not picked up again, and moves as people move towards the kitchen, to put himself between it and either of the other two. But mostly Isabella. Where most of his attention also shifts. "That's...not surprising, under the circumstances." But it is worrying. Alexander's fingers pull at the bottom seam of his new, but now slept-in t-shirt.

Wait. Alexander doesn't get coffee? He seems to realize this as he counts the cups and glasses, and frowns. "I would like coffee." A pause. "Please."

Ruiz's hands retreat into his pants pockets as he drifts deeper into the catamaran's little galley-style kitchen. He sports far more ink than the typical cop, and if it's in violation of any GHPD policies, nobody's given him shit about it to date. Maybe you get to do whatever the fuck you want, once you make Captain. Alexander's not-so-discreet move to interpose himself between the loaded gun and his two companions is not missed. But nor is it commented upon. Instead, a slight smile when Isabella comments on his gun. And, "The ergo of the grip tends to work well with smaller hands." His are not small. "And the trigger reset at speed is-" He seems to realise he's rambling, and stops himself. She didn't ask for a dissertation on firearms.

"I apologise. Mr. Clayton asked me over here for assistance. I wanted to make sure you were unhurt." What he doesn't mention, is what he was asked to bring with him. Stowed in his jacket pocket. His jacket, slung over the back of a chair near his gun. "Just coffee is fine. I don't want to make you go out of your way, Miss Reede." His gaze follows her about the kitchen as she moves, cutting up fruit and cheese, trying to make a pleasing arrangement.

I would like a coffee.

"You get one," she tells Alexander. "If you promise me that you'll at least try and take a nap. At least for a little bit while the Captain is here. I'm sure he has ways of making me stay put, and ways of making me talk." There's a quick, surreptitious wink to Ruiz at that, her old mischief - what makes her such a formidable, irrepressible presence wherever she goes, resurfacing with a vengeance from wherever her recent toils have buried it.

Retrieving another cup, she continues, fixing her focus on the moment, but she is clearly struggling. Her mind keeps going back to the amethyst, the scarabs, the band...

"The trigger reset speed is lightning fast," she continues. "The company knew what it was doing when they switched the systems over."

She works the French press with the practiced expertise of a habitual coffee drinker, and soon the scent of rich, dark brew fills the room. The platter with cheese and slices of fruit set on the island, she puts the cups in proper saucers, mindful, always of Dr. Langston in England and how he insists that everything be done properly, even with something so simple as a morning coffee. "It's no trouble, I promise. I'm used to this," she remarks, sinking on a stool by the island. "Sit, eat a little. If you guys start eating, maybe I will, too." She sets her box of chocolates on the space in front of her.

"Save for a few very minor injuries, I'm alright," she replies to the Captain's comments about checking on her, whenever her companions join her. "But I'm afraid the malady is mostly psychological...and supernatural." She is assuming that Ruiz is in the now. A cop who has managed to make captain in this town? He has to be.

"Actually, I said that I couldn't make it to the interviews, and then eventually you asked me what the fuck was going on, and I told you. And asked if you had handcuffs." This is all relayed solemnly to Ruiz, as if he might have forgotten. Along with an apologetic shrug to Isabella. "Handcuffs aren't comfortable. I'm sorry. But they're harder to get out of than pillowcases. And it isn't as if I brought any. I don't even have any." A look back Ruiz's way. "And then you wanted to make sure that she was unhurt. Because no one thinks it's unlikely that I would harm someone like that. Alejandro asked if Isolde could leave the house. If she wanted." There's a flicker of hurt there, but it's also offered as a kind of reassurance - Ruiz's suspicion is okay, because it's not like he's the only one who thinks Alexander is a potential kidnapper. Because Alexander and tact don't often live on the same planet, even when the tactful response is the one that makes him look slightly better. Slightly.

He makes that noise again. At the conditions on the coffee offer. The one that says he's going to pretend this is an agreement when it's actually just an acknowledgement. But he does slink his way up to the counter. "He could restrain you," Alexander agrees, easily enough. "If needed. But it's my responsibility." He settles in at one of the stools, his body drooping a little. "Thank you. For the breakfast." A few small tidbits are gathered, carefully tested with teeth and tongue.

Alexander's retelling of their conversation draws a long look from de la Vega. Not accusatory so much as vaguely irritated. Though when does he not look irritated? "I wanted to establish what had happened, Clayton. You don't need to look at me like I have wounded you."

He eschews a seat in favour of taking up a lean against the counter, watching Isabella work. "Are you a firearms enthusiast, or simply well learned?" is his somewhat probing question for her, on the heels of her comment about the Sig Sauer's trigger reset speed. Her hands are studied while she makes the coffee, and then another idle flick of his eyes about the living area. Or it might seem idle, to one who hasn't spent a goodly amount of their life preparing for combat scenarios. Windows and doors, points of egress, sight lines. Oddities, if any present themselves.

"I have to agree. Clayton. I will watch while you sleep." His dark eyes return to the man, and that might be a smile. Or a baring of teeth. Tomato, tomato, where the scruffy Mexican is concerned.

"You called him because you needed handcuffs?" Isabella wonders. "For me?" Lips quirk upwards, regarding the investigator with a sideways look. "At least take me out to dinner first."

She is exhausted, depleted, diminished in a way that she has never experienced before, but for the sake of normalcy and the herculean effort she is exerting not to just go tearing off to obtain the ring, she tries doubly hard to offer them these flashes of her usual self. She draws her cup of coffee towards her, taking a quiet sip, her body curling forward slightly against the edge. The strap of her tanktop slips down over her shoulder in the doing, curling against the thin, white line of a surgical scar there - stark against the light tan of soft skin.

The fact that they've joined her for coffee and a simple breakfast helps. "It is, but you need your sleep - there's only so much strain your mind can withstand before it shuts down by itself after everything you put it through, and you don't want that happening in a crucial moment." Those eyes find Ruiz when he inspects the interior of her houseboat, a cursory once-over that is actually not, recognizing it for what it is...and making that clear when she responds to his query:

"Dad was a captain at the Navy before he retired," she offers by way of explanation. "When I was growing up, he took me hunting, and diving. I probably learned how to shoot and swim before I could do any arithmetic with any competence." Amusement simmers in the undercurrents of her expression. "Paved the way into me becoming a professional adventurer, I think. What about you, Captain? Born and raised, or were you acquired?"

There's a perceptible deepening in the hunch of Alexander's shoulders at Ruiz's irritation. "I'm sorry," he says, quietly. His gaze ducking down towards his coffee. My precious. It''s sipped, and then nearly choked on when Isabella puts in her touch of wit. A sudden, fleeting smile of his own. "I don't know. You stood me up, after all. If I spring for dinner, next time the town might catch on fire or something." It's light, teasing, not condemning.

And then they're telling him to go to sleep, and the smile is gone, replaced by a tired sort of stubbornness. "I'm fine." He doesn't try to sell it; it's a petulant mutter more than anything convincing. His swig of coffee is downright rebellious. Save him, sweet caffeine, from sensible advice. Still, the questions and answers are interesting, and he listens to those with interest, even if it's more framed in the shift of his head fractionally in one direction or the other rather than eye contact.

The cop's gaze lingers on Isabella's shoulder a moment while the pair speak. Possibly because he's a man, and she's attractive, and her shoulder is half-bared. Or possibly that scar. Catalogued along with everything else that characterises the woman and her home, and maybe those jumbled bits and pieces form a coherent picture. Or maybe they don't, yet. The cup of coffee that's slid his way is collected in fingers that are, themselves, inked along the knuckles. Letters and symbols that may have meaning, or no such thing.

There's no more argument from the man, on the subject of Alexander's sleep. He will sleep. This is a foregone conclusion. And Ruiz will be here to stand vigil, if need be, over a woman he barely knows. Which is about par for the course for this fucked up little town.

"Which navy?" Isabella is asked after some rumination that seems to have targeted the other man. He shifts his gaze from Alexander and his extraneous apologies, to the exhausted woman who's insisted on making them coffee. A piece of fruit is plucked off the plate, and obliterated with his teeth. "No entiendo la pregunta," he murmurs to Isabella with his mouth half full.

"Oh." Isabella says the word without even blinking, her expression perfectly straight, staring directly at the investigator. "Well, then, lucky for us we're prepared with those handcuffs. I guess we should just skip straight to the hard fucking next time, before the inevitable nuclear holocaust."

Did she time her words to Alexander taking a sip of his coffee? She probably did, the devil in her dancing in green eyes filled with her brand of utterly unapologetic mischief. She takes up a bit of cheese and fruit for herself, a nibble there, but her heart clearly isn't in it. In fact, the act of eating visibly depresses her, reminded of the gnawing chasm within herself that could only be assuaged by one thing. Her eyes move, almost longingly, to the door.

Which navy?

He is asking her a question and she pulls her gaze reluctantly from there. "US. He went to the Academy in Annapolis, and then was stationed at Kitsap to be closer to home. He was a Navy man through and through, even before he joined, I think - or that's what my grandfather would say. He would still be at it if it weren't for the accident."

She is trying - her distance from her phone helps, but the struggle is real. She focuses on the ink on Ruiz's fingers instead, her head tilting curiously at the symbols there. "What do they mean?" she asks, unable to help it, as straightforward with her questions as she is with most everything else. She gestures with a finger towards the swirls of color she finds, though she doesn't touch his skin.

"Sleep deprivation has not made me any more fluent in Spanish, Captain," Alexander says, a bit testily. He rubs under his eyes, which unfocus. His voice goes soft and distracted. "Although there were Soviet experiments on the effect of sleep deprivation on various esoteric human abilities. Mostly focusing on things like remote reading and telepathy, but theoretically, if you accept the presence of some sort of mental powers. Which, being me, I am pretty much obligated to or I am a lot crazier than I think I am. Then it seems possible that the change in neurochemical levels could in fact induce--" and then what Isabella has actually said penetrates his haze of thoughts, and he chokes on his words and his coffee, and for a moment there, it looks like maybe even his tongue.

Before anyone has to decide if they want to trigger a panic attack by banging him on the back, he recovers. "Cruel. Isabella. Very cruel." But he's making a sound that's probably laughter, a bit hoarse but true. And then Isabella's asking about the tattoos, and his focus sharpens. This is clearly relevant to his interests.

The captain, meanwhile, smothers a grin in his coffee when Isabella mentions jumping straight to the hard fucking. Because he's an ass who probably enjoys, on some level, watching Alexander's discomfort.

"Annapolis. I've been there. Briefly. Between the river and the bay." The city, he means. His dark eyes slant slightly, and he considers the contents of his cup as if they hold his memory of the place. As if studying it might make the details easier to recall. But in the end, briefly seems an apt enough descriptor to cover the fact that he doesn't quite recall. He sips again, and then provides the answer he thinks she wants. Which may be far afield of what she'd asked: "Mexico." meh-HEE-co. Definitely not born and raised. His accent makes that clear.

As to his ink, he lifts his hand briefly to gaze at the backs of his knuckles, then Isabella. His tattoos are almost exclusively black and grey. With the exception of some colour in a rose that's sprouting out of a sugar skull, high on his bicep. "Era joven y estúpido," he answers with a laugh, flexing his fingers. The letters E, M and L. A stylised fish. And what looks like a bird, wings spread in flight. "You know, I think, how it is. Poor decisions." Alexander's complaint about his Spanish? Ignored.

"I can be," Isabella banters lightly to Alexander as she takes a sip of her coffee, watching him choke. "The world is lucky I don't elect to be very often."

That's true, too, reminding herself of what she had decided when she left Gray Harbor behind the first time.

Eating is becoming more of a chore than something she actually wants to be doing, so after a couple of bites of fruit and cheese, she settles for drinking her coffee instead in an attempt to put more energy into herself. But she flags, the struggle becomes more and more pronounced, banished when the man tells her that he was young and stupid at the time when he got them. While she is fluent in a few languages, Spanish isn't one of them - but she has been to Mexico and Spain, has had to navigate foreign countries and customs in her career, and some of the words, she finds familiar. The rest, she can guess by context.

"I haven't been to Mexico in a while," she muses. "The last time was a few years ago during a conference regarding the conservation efforts surrounding Chichen Itza. There were rumors that the government was thinking of closing the site in order to preserve it - the Mayans built with limestone, so it was understandable...careless handling would erode the structures quickly." Though at the sound of the captain's laugh, she shakes her head faintly, before she could go on an academic tear. "I think I missed the cut-off mark for ink," she says instead, grinning faintly. "Just a couple of years shy of thirty. I thought I would get one, once upon a time, but then I got sucked into Academia and forgot about it. Or maybe not, I've got time to kill here. Maybe it's time."

There's a pause, watching the countertop, before she reaches forward to take the bottle on the table.

"I think..." she begins softly, the fever starting to return, green eyes burning with a fell light. "I think I should take these. It's getting hard...I can't...I need..."

Alexander listens to the answer. He doesn't even complain about the Spanish - there are times when being really good at Latin come in handy, and besides, the information thus revealed is...enlightening. He doesn't say anything, not immediately, but he studies the Captain with that reptilian concentration again. For a moment, he hardly looks sleep deprived at all - and there are almost certainly a number of very rude questions about to bubble up and overflow.

Until Isabella reaches for the bottle. His focus shifts in an instant, and his hand comes out to pick it up before she can. "Let me. What sort of tattoo would you want to get, Isabella? Describe it." A slight uptick of his mouth. "No points for shocking me, but you get ten if you can make the Captain blush." His voice is calm, stronger than it's been this whole time as he tries to trigger a distraction for her hungry mind, and he measures out the dose with ease. It's a strong one, particularly considering how little she's eaten, but not dangerous. He places the pills, before her, and the bottle is placed entirely out of her reach.

Alprazolam. Otherwise known as Xanax.

Ruiz knows perfectly well what's in that bottle, though not where it came from. His eyes follow Alexander's hands as he doles out a couple of pills and sets them on the counter. And for just a moment, he looks toward his gun. Then down at his cup of coffee, lashes lowered as he sips and swallows. "There is a studio in town that I have heard does good work," he proffers quietly. He'll not interject otherwise, as Alexander tries to spur the woman to talk about something else. Find something to fixate on and distract her mind. His gaze is steady on her; eyes dark and mirror like as he watches her mind careen and her body start to falter.

Two steps, and he could have the gun in his hand. Two steps. "I would be impressed," he murmurs with some amusement, at getting him to blush. He's an ex-marine. So good luck with that.

She hates this.

She doesn't know where it runs the strongest; the fact that she doesn't have full control of her formidable mental faculties at the moment, or the fact that these people are watching her, and will get in the way of her vacating her own home and obtaining the thing she truly desires. Nothing makes her gnash her teeth, recoil so fiercely, than the prospect of utter, helpless dependence and this situation is forcing her into both sides of it. Depending on Alexander and the Captain to keep her out of trouble, depending on the ring and its mysteries to live. For a moment, the depths of her frustration are visible, mingling with the ill burn in those virid-gold irises; her face is simply too expressive to hide it, and her fiery determination often gets in the way of cold, ruthless calculation - were she in her right mind, perhaps she could have foiled attempts at discovery, but Alexander had to meddle. He had to be clever, and had managed to stop her before she could do something disastrous.

It's getting progressively harder to answer his questions, or care. But she tries. "Koi," she says. "I've always loved them. They're meaningful, too. In Feng Shui, they represent advancement. Determination." Of course it would be water-related on top of it, she's a Reede, and all Reedes dream of water. "Maybe down my hip." The challenge has her shifting her gaze sideways to Ruiz, inspecting his hardened face, the tattoos and the darkness of his eyes. She can't help but laugh, despite herself. "I can be reckless," she says. "But I'd like to think I'm not stupid enough to take a losing bet when I see one. Even a blind man would be able to sniff that the Captain's seen some shit. If anything, he looks like he'd probably be able to make me blush and that's not easy for anyone, either."

The pills, she takes. Isabella swallows them with her coffee, and because she's not about to have either one of them carry her to her bedroom, she stands up from her seat. "I'm not one to back off from a challenge though, so maybe these will give me some wild, crazy inspiration. In the meantime, I should..." She shakes her head, lifting her fingers to rub her cheek.

"So you, stay out of trouble." This to Alexander. "And you, get into trouble, and then maybe lock up some well-deserving pendejos." This to Ruiz. "It was nice meeting you at last, Captain."

And with that, she turns to shuffle towards her bedroom, her fingers brushing over the wall of the narrow hallway as she goes; to keep her grounded, perhaps, or steady. But she is determined to get there, on her own two feet.

"You should sleep." Alexander supplies the end of Isabella's trailed sentence, firmly. He rises when she does, frame tense. But he doesn't move to support or hinder her, tries not to hover so much it damages her already wounded pride. He does move again, though, to place himself between her and the gun as she passes it. He doesn't have the subtlety to make it look like anything than what it is, but his voice is soft as he says, "Try to rest. I will do my best to stay out of trouble."

And then he just looks worried and furrowed of brow, his arms crossed over her chest as she heads into the bedroom. A glance over at Ruiz, searching, unhappy. Then back at the retreating woman.

There is no need, in truth, for him to try to intercept the woman's path to Ruiz's gun. Coffee cup slid onto the counter, the scruffy cop takes those two steps to liberate his firearm from where it sits, and shove it back into its holster near his left shoulder. Isabella is shadowed a smile, slight, for her words to him. But he'll not delay her in seeking rest. A few quiet words, offered as she passes him by. She may hear them, or she may not:

"All the strength of the waves that perish
Swells beneath me and laughs and sighs,
Sighs for love of the life they cherish,
Laughs to know that it lives and dies."

Alexander's unhappiness is noted. Gaze held, then relinquished as he finishes off his coffee and goes to rinse out the cup.

She will try. Hopefully she succeeds. Isabella directs a faint smile at Alexander's way. "I'll be fine," she says. He might not believe it, but she clearly does. This is not a lie, not to her, or something she says by rote. As usual, she is reluctant to admit her weaknesses - a failing, sometimes, but it's given her a tough hide, with a lion's share of moxie to match. This casual bravado has followed her since childhood, worsening at embarking in a relatively perilous career - who goes into underwater archaeology after all? She's not about to change now.

She ignores the gun, doesn't even seem to notice it, though that is probably deceptive and they are right to be wary. But Ruiz's quiet words have her pausing, her eyes lifting to meet his. A flare of recognition pushes some of that feverish light away, replaced by surprise...and a hint of gratitude, too.

For she knows it. Anyone who loves the water does.

"Nobody would ever know that about you just by looking at you, Captain," she tells him softly, having no qualms teasing him, too. Nevermind that they just met. "Your secret's safe with me."

And with that, she slips through her door and closes it behind her.

"I'm starting to despise that word," Alexander says, but mildly. There's relief when the gun is back in the cop's holster, but it's not really anything compared to when the door closes behind her. The purpose just sort of drains out of him, his arms drooping and dangling like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut. His expression goes completely blank.

Then he shakes himself, a little, and life returns to his features, of a subdued and exhausted sort. "I have to feed my bird at some point," he mutters. Not really to Ruiz, although he's clearly aware of the man as he moves around him, back to the coffee, to drink. It's external thought, spooling outward. "And get clean clothes. And visit the crime scene." That Ruiz explicitly ordered him to stay away from. "And I should check in with the doctor. And we still have our interviews. And there's the asylum. I should write a list."