2019-08-08 - Promises

He gets the call sometime during the late night of the incident at Two If By Sea. With the way things were going in Gray Harbor this summer, Addington Memorial Hospital has seen an influx of wounded from all of the city's stranger incidents in the last week. Like most medical professionals, the development of calluses towards tragedy was essential, but so much of it all at once can take a toll. It is evident by the feminine voice on the other line when the not-private investigator picks up the phone.

"Mister Clayton?" The caller sounds exhausted. Either she knows who he is, is familiar with the fact that he was just at the hospital, himself, or she has been keeping long hours and has spoken so much during the interim that her voice is starting to fray on the edges. "I apologize for calling once again, but it's not to press for a follow-up from your last visit. I'm calling because Miss Isabella Reede is undergoing an emergency procedure, and I can't reach her father."

She pauses.

"The notes in her file indicated that she stopped by the hospital two days ago to update her records and to add you as an emergency contact."

You're also not alone, he told her in their last conversation.

They've only known each other for several weeks; they've managed to run through the gauntlet of several harrowing experiences crammed into a short time period, but these incidents do not change the fact that their time together was brief - perhaps all too brief, when all is said and done. But in spite of the short duration of their acquaintance, he had known, early on, that outside of her opinions and her unfettered swings between intense contemplation, joy and fury, Isabella has never been the sort of creature who was forthcoming with the softer, quieter words that she is unwilling or unable to express. Actions, though, are familiar. She is used to action. She prefers it.

Perhaps she would never tell him, but in this, she is at least crystal clear that she has not forgotten what he has said to her...and that she made the choice to believe him.

~ * ~

They say that the first twenty-four hours are crucial for someone who has gone under the knife in her circumstances - much like people reported missing.

Eventually moved out of the intensive care unit and into a recovery room, her chart hangs in the dispenser at the foot of her bed, situated close to the windows, their drapes pushed open to let in the sun. Sunlight slips through the room in streamers, its warmth blunted by the hospital's able ventilation and airconditioning units. The interior is cool, at least, but as always in places like these, it is undeniably a place where, ultimately, Time and Chance decide who lives and who dies - a labyrinthine collection of rooms and chambers steeped in dingy, off-white sterility, the closest thing to Purgatory established in this strange and sleepy town.

Isabella, too, is asleep, but even in her repose, she radiates the restlessness of one who takes pride in her tenacity, even when her body is forced to succumb. Dark brown hair frames her face in tangled whorls, long lashes heavy against her cheeks and breathing in time with the monitors gauging her vitals. An intravenous drip of fluids - decidedly not the cheeseburgers she would probably insist on - threads into her veins through the thin plastic tube attached to the back of her hand. Fingers clench now and then on the sheets, unconsciously clawing and hanging onto life - in the end, instinctive, testimonial hints of the seemingly endless fight in her. Her breathing is deep, expands and concaves her chest, so bound by so many bandages under the bare slip she wears - for ease and access of the nurses who have to stand by her bedside, to clean and dress the sutures that hold skin and sinew closed. Roses of dark blood speckle the otherwise pristine lengths, blossoming in Rorschach patterns over her clavicle.

Her clothes are gone; the doctors have had to cut them off her body, but her personal effects have been salvaged and kept in a clear plastic bag situated on her bedside - her keys, her wallet, her phone. Within the array of these essentials is her moonstone pendant, catching the light in the room and flaring with its usual, beautiful swirls of auroral colors, marred by the toils it had endured with its wearer. Blood, so coagulated that it looks almost black, stains the white gold setting and splatter over one side of the gem, webbing over the surface - as if in reminder of the veins of dark, viscous corruption that he had forcibly cut out of him just several hours ago.

Alexander has never been someone's emergency contact, and the entire concept of it briefly bewilders him. Which, to be honest, leads to a briefly awkward conversation with the caller until it is established that yes, Isabella probably actually intended to put him down, and it wasn't just some sort of weird mistake. At which point, having already received texts from Isolde about her own injuries, he's already on his way to the hospital.

And so he has been bouncing back and forth since then, from the hospital to various downtown facilities. He's a much better visitor than a patient, at least - even if he's having to cycle through several rooms and different floors, because TOO MANY of the people he likes have somehow wound up here, wounded and (in a couple of cases) much closer to death than he would ever prefer to see them. Isolde is visited first, as she's the least wounded and he's allowed in there earliest. But now he's showing up at Isabella's door, with a leather-bound book in one hand, and a vase with flowers in the other. A small, plush octopus is clinging to the vase, all orange with large, dark eyes. God only knows where he got that, but it's placed by her bedside as he moves to sit down. Then stops. The book is also put down, but he stands up and moves to examine her chart like the nosy person he is.

He's over-dressed for the weather - his usual faded band t-shirt is covered by an open-fronted button-down shirt with long sleeves. But, hey, the hospital tends to be cold, and he certainly has been here often enough, recently, to recognize that.

The chart is full of doctor's jargon, with notes handwritten in clear, legible, masculine script; it identifies the first responders, names that he might find familiar - H.E. Sutton and B. Oakes. The attending surgeon is a Dr. A. Hayworth and it stands to reason that it is his hand that has made them, and ultimately one of those responsible for Isabella's present hold on life.

There is a diagram charting her toils and all descriptive of the gunshot wounds she has sustained, five in all, rounds punched into her chest in different angles and severity. The bullet casings, the file said, were collected dutifully and given to the Gray Harbor Police Department as evidence. She isn't large, or particularly hardy, and while she keeps an active lifestyle, exercise only goes so far, given the limitations of gender and genetics without the help of other procedures or performance-enhancing drugs.

"...you're...not going to find...any naked pictures in there..."

Once he looks up, he'll find her eyes, blazing green and shot with unadulterated life, thin crescents of color under the heavy drape of her lids. The rest of her looks depleted, spent, but they have always been the most eloquent mirrors of the perpetually burning star core inside of herself, the thing that manages to keep her moving in spite of the circumstances and no matter the odds. Her lips twitch at the corners, pale and bloodless, but is unable, ultimately, to smile at him in full. Slowly, that virid gaze shutters again.

One of the 'great' things about having an unhealthy obsession with the bloodier bits of crime, is that one gets pretty adept at reading autopsy reports and medical reports that include phrases like 'pulmonary trauma' and 'multiple gunshot wounds'. It doesn't necessarily make comprehending the information any more pleasant, and Alexander's jaw is set, with a muscle jumping from the strain, as he pores through the materials.

Her voice startles him; he flinches, throws a guilty look towards the door, first, but then identifies it and peeks over the chart to study her. "I wasn't looking for naked pictures," he says, as if that had been a serious response. He puts the chart down, and moves to take a chair beside her bed, sitting in a graceless sort of huddle. "You're looking alive, Isabella. That's good." A faint, worried smile. "I'm not going to ask how you're feeling, because I can probably guess. But...it's good to see you. The hospital called me."

She knows what he is looking for; she hasn't known him long, but certain of his proclivities and predispositions are very familiar to her in spite of the shortness of their connection. She would smile at him, if she was able.

I'm not going to ask how you're feeling, because I can probably guess.

Her silence after those words is emphatic enough of other things simmering in the surface as eyes open again to look at him from the partial cover of her lashes; he huddles close enough that she can smell coffee, paper and ink - the scents that she associates with him the most - past the copper-tang of her own blood and the stinging notes of antiseptic. They say that smell is the most effective trigger for memory and watching his face and the concern scrawled over his haggard, but handsome profile, she can't help but do that. She is not familiar with the edges of his pain, whatever it is in his past that shattered him like pottery, put back together again by the cement of his own grit, but it is enough to know that it was there - and that whenever he chooses to fight, he somehow manages to succeed when it counts. When it matters the most.

An ability that continues to elude her, for all of her determination, starting from the night Isidore disappeared.

Tears, traitorous and vile, sting her unbidden and she shuts her eyes defiantly to prevent them from falling, fury, frustration and no small measure of envy curdling the pit of her stomach.

"Yeah...like I've...been shot..." Isabella murmurs instead, forces herself to cling to that levity because she can't. She's already lying here, battered and weakened, a pile of stitched-together meat inwardly and impotently flailing over the things that she has failed to do. She takes a breath, but every inhale feels like it burns, and immolates her from within.

"I'm glad you came," she confesses, her voice low - as if a sinner, and he the priest. Her words, at least, are losing that absent, drifting lilt the further she is drawn into wakefulness. "I have to tell you something."

"Of course I came," Alexander says, with a frown in her direction. Apparently near death is no excuse for saying silly things that imply he might NOT have come when called. He notices the unshed tears, that's clear from the stare he subjects her to, but he's familiar enough with her pride that he doesn't mention them. He does, though, reach out to gently caress the side of her face. "I can't yell at you for being reckless, because it sounds like you weren't even doing anything that should have led to a shootout with 'old timey' people." There's a pause. "Which is lucky, or there would be yelling, and don't think major physical trauma would get you out of it." The slightest of smiles.

"What do you want to tell me?" Alexander peers at her face, a touch wary. Such statements rarely end well.

"You know I can't guarantee that, right?" Isabella tells him quietly, though the strength of her smile returns in bare increments. That familiar spark of mischief enlivens the green of her eyes. "That's alright..." Her lashes lower, though this time they don't close in full. It's difficult to keep them open, with trauma so fresh, and when she's hovering on the tail end of another dose of painkillers, to be refreshened whenever the nurses decide to check on her again. "I'll fight you anytime."

The words that follow subsequently seizes her attention, and the young woman on the bed lifts her gaze to meet his eyes, the telltale glitter of unshed moisture clinging stubbornly to its corners. They do threaten to fall when his hand finds the curve of her cheek, callused fingers and these rough traces of his turbulent life running over soft skin and tangling into the dark rivulets of hair that clutch on these subtle feminine shapes of her. But she doesn't avert her attention from his intent, near-black stare, fixed on her features as it is, forever attempting to decrypt the passing of her moods - like an ancient manuscript with which he has nothing to depend on as a guide, save for his own instincts.

"I witnessed the Ghoul's last stand," she murmurs. "But it sounds like you already know some of what happened." She could claim to be surprised, but in the end, she finds that she really isn't, managing to catch the implications of his words - her mind is still working, despite all that she has endured. "How did you...? What do you know about what happened?" She asks these questions so she won't reiterate what he already knows. That, and she isn't at full strength.

"Guarantee?" Alexander snorts. "I don't even expect you to try, Isabella. It won't stop me from yelling." But there's a sneaky little smile under the sternness, and he lets his thumb idly trace the slant and peak of her cheekbones, the soft skin and warm vitality of her, even in her current state. As if he is reassuring himself of her solidity. The very edge of a fingertip strays up, catches one of those welling tears and gently wipes it away.

Her first words of explanation lift his eyebrows, turn his expression sharp, thoughtful. "Did you. Isolde, the friend I told you about who is living with me, she was there. She wasn't as injured as badly as you or the Captain, so she's been able to receive visitors, sooner." His voice drops to a mutter, "Still haven't gotten in to see him, yet." Somewhere between anger at the hospital staff and sheer worry about what that says about Ruiz's condition, fights its way across his features. He shakes his head, focuses in on her. "She was able to tell me a little. Just that it was a shoot out with old-timey people. The police radio suggested a gunfight at the Two if by Sea, but it sounded...confusing. Since you say it was William Gohl...I take it that you got lost, and he tried to murder you all? With...other people?"

"Isolde..." Isabella murmurs, her mind shifting gears as she attempts to dredge up the memories of the other night, sifting them out of the self-loathing muck of her own stewing inadequacies. She has never met Alexander's friend and roommate, but most of the faces in the bar that night were familiar - Bennie Oakes and Everly Sutton were present in the hospital during the first night she returned from overseas and both, while Easton didn't look familiar, he was a man. She, of course, knows Captain de la Vega. Which only leaves...

"...origami paper, freckles..." she begins, attempting to push past the haze of her foggy memories the moment that devastating blow threatened to cave her chest in, a woman with dark hair and a flannel overshirt looming over her, whispering in a language she can't understand. Was it Italian? French? It sounded like French - musical and beautiful, reassuring. "I tried to protect her...I tried to convince her to go when I couldn't anymore. She was sitting in the stool between the Ghoul and I, and I didn't want...I didn't want any more..."

Tried and failed even in that, when it was Isolde who looked after her once she fell, who reassured her that everything was going to be fine. Who reached out for her when the last bullet took her consciousness away. Her jaw sets, those eyes brimming with that old, wounded frustration under the damning film of water and salt, staring up at the face that is trying, at the moment, to reassure her. And reassure himself.

"He walked in and looked at me with a strange expression, like he was confused. I didn't...it didn't click in the first try, but he stepped up to the bar next to me and offered the bartender a silver coin for a whiskey." And being a habitual scotch drinker, she knows coins don't just buy a shot. "I couldn't help but look at the coin, and saw the date it was minted. I then took a look...a really good look. And when I recognized who he was..." She wets her lips, feeling it crack and bleed from the lack of moisture, teeth tasting the rust of her own blood. "Captain de la Vega was with someone...I recognized her, she was one of the paramedics in the hospital the first night I came back to town. I told him who I was standing next to and then...Sheriff Addington came squealing in with squad cars with his men. The shootout happened after that. Isolde grabbed my hand but I knew...there was no way the walls could...so I..."

In the end, Isolde ended up taking care of her. She is grateful, she is relieved that the woman made it out safely, and in better shape than she did. But she wanted...

I was worthless.

The tear he wipes away feels hot, scalding over her skin - the sensation was both mortifying and a comfort. She swallows thickly. "They kept finding me," she tells him softly. "The Addington bullets. But someone was..."

It comes as a rush, a flood of color - so sudden and vivid that it nearly takes her breath away; as if she has returned there, her eyes suddenly looking beyond him. Was he right after all? If these things happened, if they keep on going this way, one after another after another, would it affect her, too? The image coalesces in the mental bridge that suddenly springs to life, hovering there for him to seize with his own talents if he chose, the final moment she remembers with this kind of clarity before Deputy Jim's shadow fell over her. A dark haired woman, pale skin, near-black make-up and piercings, standing grim, but triumphant over William Gohl in the midst of shattered glass and showering splinters, Time frozen in amber.

Irvriya Minerva Komisar, lips parted in mid-conversation as Billy Gohl stared up at her in what looks to be shock and confusion.

"...she took him down," she tells him quietly and that chafes at her pride, also. The Ghoul had taken from her. She wanted to be the one to... this is the only way she can be useful at the moment, confined in a hospital bed as she is. "And spoke to him. But I don't know...I couldn't hear what was said. We need..." She closes her eyes. "We need to find her."

There's a flash of a smile. "Yes. I believe she's currently working on making a skink." There's undeniable fondness there, although one that becomes tinged with exasperation as Isabella continues. "Yes. She said much the same about you, as well. You're both foolish and brave." Exasperation, yes, but also a hint of admiration there, that Isabella and Isolde would reach out to strangers to protect them and comfort them when everything went to hell. He picks up on the frustration, if not the full reasons behind it, and his caress becomes gentle. "Isabella. You got lost. Violence happens. People get hurt. There's nothing you can do about that, except what you did - try to stay alive. And help other people stay alive. Which you did."

The rest is listened to with a thoughtful expression. There's a flicker of rage here and there; the Ghoul's name itself sparks it, but so does the mention of an Addington sheriff, of bullets finding Isabella's body. The hand not touching her curls into a tight fist, relaxes, tightens again. Then his head rocks back, a little, as the image is projected into his mind. He closes his eyes to shut out the confusing double stimulus. "I know her," he says, after a moment. "I didn't realize you could...thank you, Isabella. That will help." He refocuses on her, eyes opening again. "You said the Captain was with a paramedic. Miss Sutton, I would imagine. She and Miss Oakes were on the ambulance that brought you in." A grunt. "If Bennie was there...was Easton? Short, handsome man, likely the bartender? I haven't heard of him being admitted."

He comforts her the best he can - sweet, gentle, and reflective of his admiration and growing affection, but all in all, relatively inadequate. And could he be blamed? Could anyone be blamed for it? She hasn't spoken a word of the incident to anyone and as he says these soft, quiet words to her, his thumb tracing absent, idle patterns over the high arch of her cheek, Isabella's expression twists, agony writhing across those fine features and giving him a glimpse of the garden of regrets that she has nursed within her for over a decade - twisting paths full of thorns and brambles, camouflaging the words she could never tell anyone.

I fail when it matters. The dream fills her skull with its mocking, broken shards, the sibilant hiss following her in the struggling, bloody path to get herself out of the cemetery and the temptations that plagued her then, and haunt her, still. What's the point of fighting when you never win?

She tastes his rage and it helps, she feels it in the air - not due to the Talent, but her empathy and the fact that she is intimate friends with Anger; the way his eyes flicker and burn like living night. There's surprise there, when he tells her that he knows Minerva, mirroring his own when he tells her...

Isabella doesn't address that yet. Instead: "The Captain is alive, and alright. I spoke to him a little, he was in the same intensive care room as me, when we were both out of surgery." He was calling for someone, she almost says, but decides against it. "And...the bartender? Yes. But I don't think he was harmed." Someone had to spin a convincing story to the police, and it was his bar.

She says nothing else for a long moment, but when she finally does, her voice is low, brimming with fondness and remembered pain. "When Sid and I were growing up, that was our favorite way to play pranks on one another. Illusions...he taught me." Didn't she tell him before? It was the little tricks that she loved the most. The memory of it presses her lips together, feeling something eroding within herself, like a landslide threatening to take out her legs, or a dam leaking through its cracks; the walls of her fortress, smoking and standing from a volley of unforgiving cannonfire, its parapets crumbling from the sky...

You could rest here, and wait for him.
He will come, if you stayed. If you slumbered.

The yawning dark reaches for her and she turns her face away, to ground herself into the present. She knows he can't help himself, she knows, but she turns her face further into his hand and girds herself to swallow the rejection, her eyes squeezing shut. He came because he was called, is here because she elected to believe him, and there's some comfort to be had in the fact that in some small way, her faith was rewarded. "Alexander..." It's barely a whisper, the way his name leaves her breaking at the last syllable. Her mouth, soft, injured, humid, presses into the heel of his palm, mindful of the fact that she has never attempted to kiss him - any part of him before, and it may cost her.

But she doesn't care.

"Good," Alexander says, to news of Easton not being harmed. "I'll contact him, see how he's doing." Further relief at the Captain's presence among the living, although he doesn't dwell on it - no doubt he has already made plans to pester Ruiz and take advantage of the rare circumstances where the cop might actually be too wounded to explode at him, no matter how provoking Alexander chooses to be.

There's a softening of his expression, a brief wistfulness at the remembered fondness in her voice, her eyes. The pain, yes, but pain he's had a plenty in his life, and it's no stranger to him. The bond that once seemed to exist between Isabella and her twin is something that he clearly doesn't quite get on an emotional level, even as he recognizes its importance to her. He watches her and drinks in the unfamiliar emotions until her face twists, until she turns into his palm and presses that kiss into the cupped palm of his hand. A catch of breath, a widening of his eyes in surprise. But no rejection. He turns his hand, slowly, just enough so that he can run the calloused edge of his thumb across the curve of her lower lip.

"Isabella." Just that. Just her name, in that flat voice that's only just above a whisper, as he strokes the sensitive skin of her mouth.

The way she says his name is different, unfamiliar even to her. The nagging thought that it is alien, and strange but not unwelcome, doesn't reach Isabella consciously, not yet anyway - syllables pulsing with incontrovertible, breathless need and the bittersweet ache that fills her whenever he tends to do things like this, manages to surprise her time and again that he can be victorious over his own demons to meet her halfway. She has never made any demands of him, and she couldn't be any clearer regarding the breadth of freedom he actually has to eject her from his life whenever he didn't want her there anymore. But he is here, and thirty-odd years alive in spite of the countless attempts of this damned city trying to take from him.

She half expects him to pull away; whether gently or abruptly, there is always equal odds, but the risk is there that she is consigning herself to another moment of embracing a space devoid of another's presence. But when he shifts and doesn't, lashes lift, the feathery brush tickling his skin as she looks at him, expressive green eyes rendered inscrutable by the myriad of unspoken things he finds within them, swirling in the turbulence of the inner storms of her, his face reflected in their crystal color. It hurts, when his thumb so gently familiarizes itself with the curve of her lower lip, but with her, passion often does - and she wouldn't have it any other way, his touch resuscitating parts of her that feel as if they've been inundated in a years-long torpor; delicious, electric, alive. Her lips part almost involuntarily, a millimeter or two, introducing him further to their softness, her breath warming the curved edge of that single, exploratory digit.

Her hand lifts, fingertips sliding in the hollows between the defined ridges of his knuckles, over the back of his hand. Her face turns again, further into his palm and lower; he'd feel her exhale first before passion and need find the corded inside of his wrist. Her fingers, her touch, are light and feel barely there, as if most of her has been dissolved into an uncertain, spectral thing. But the warmth of her mouth is solid and real, pressing the shape of it against his skin to enter the sensation of it in his long and troubled memories, moving gently until it stops to linger there, her eyes drifting closed in an effort to sink herself in the steady, rhythmic beats of his heart.

"Are you real?" she whispers, finally, against the lightly-captured limb.

"I don't want to sleep." Though by the way she says the last word, he would get the sense that she means something else.

It's not his skin that she finds when the long-sleeve of his shirt is pushed aside, but sterile gauze - bandaging wrapped tight around his wrist and a good way up his forearm. And although there's a soft, pleased sound from the back of his throat as her fingers skate over his hand, when she does reach those bandages, he only allows her to linger for a few moments before he gently pulls away, flicks the sleeve back down over them, and lowers his hand out of sight over the side of the bed. But he leans over, instead, to try and press a kiss on her forehead, attempting to soften the rejection of that motion with another contact, although this one is brief.

"I think so," he murmurs, just above her skin. "I have done my best to remain so." He smiles, a bit sadly, at her last words. "You should, though. You need to heal, Isabella. I can stay with you until you do. Make sure there are no bad dreams." Because he's pretty sure he knows what that word is supposed to be. Then he turns to reach for the book he brought, and shows it to her. Liber Iuratus Honorii. "Some light reading, if you're not entirely up on your ritual magical practices from the thirteen hundreds. While you recover."

The presence of the gauze is startling when her mouth unexpectedly finds signs of an injury.

But Isabella doesn't protest when he pulls it away from her, though for him, this is a gradual thing, and her eyes lift towards his own. Whatever she is about to say finds itself delayed when his shadow falls across her own and his mouth finds her forehead, reminding her unfailingly of the night he braced himself and took her in his arms. All small things, all insignificant, perhaps, to those who have had normal relationships; people who might scoff, or roll their eyes at these halting, sophomoric attempts at intimacy - but she is painfully aware as to how difficult all of it actually is for him and the fact that he continues to try twists at her also. After all, what does it say about a man, who constantly fights his worst, most protective impulses - against a years-long cultivated series of algorithms to ensure his survival - just to be close to her? And someone who might not even deserve that level of devotion.

It is this knowledge of him that lets her close her eyes and savor these tokens, this kiss on her forehead, no matter how small. She does not take them for granted, and each little thing only intensifies her need.

When her eyes open again, the archaeologist is quiet, watching him even as he turns to show her the book he brought her, her mind turning over what he could mean - how does someone remain real? Followed by that sad smile. Why is he...?

"The Liber Sacer?" she wonders, surprised, fingers reaching for the book. "I've heard of it, but I've never actually read it." It is this act of turning towards him fully that enables her to see the flowers, and the plush octopus clinging to the vase. There it is, finally, a visible smile. One hand shifts in its trajectory, to play her fingers lightly on one of the tentacles. "It's adorable," she murmurs. "I don't remember the last time a man brought me flowers." She's a fan. "Dandelions are my favorites," she later supplies, another piece of her that nobody actually knows, to add onto his mental file of her. Though the choice is strange - aren't they salad fixings at best, and weeds at worst?

After a moment, she exhales a breath. "Alexander, what happened to your arm?" she asks, meeting his gaze. "Do I have to hit someone with my Jeep?"

Alexander hands her the book gently. "It's interesting," he says. "This one is from my collection. It's not a very large collection, mostly stuff from college, but I thought you might enjoy it." A faint smile as he settles back into his seat, and watches her interact with the plush. "Adorable. Good. I wasn't sure, but I remembered you like water. And penguins seem formal." A slight lift of his eyebrows, as if that might be his idea of a joke. "Dandelions. I'll remember." If there's anything strange to the preference, he doesn't seem to notice it. Just commits it to memory, possibly with some underlining and a note saying 'in case of emergency forgiveness'.

He glances down at his arm when she asks the question, and shakes his head. "Not unless you're having a pressing need to run me over, Isabella. I cut myself in my kitchen." A pause. "I don't know how to cook." Two statements, each true, each stated bluntly, but perhaps constructed in an order to allow her to draw conclusions he'd prefer. He adds, "I do have a large number of artichokes, aubergines, and cucumbers, though."

The tome is one that she handles carefully, though she has to move so she could accept it. It is not advisable, perhaps, but Isabella is a stubborn, decisive creature in her best days and he'd find her shifting on the covers, grabbing tightly on either side of her hospital bed's metal frame. Tension braids up her forearms as she forces herself up in a sitting position, the dark falls of her hair dropping in an uncontrolled tumble down shoulders left bare by her top, curling against her spine. Without the help of a hot iron every morning, he'd find that her hair is naturally wavy, framing her face in its own, wild torrent.

She must feel somewhat self-conscious about her frightful appearance because she pushes her fingers through the mass in an effort to at least get it out of her eyes. And then she takes the book. "You know, I know we're living in the age of the Kindle but I don't think I'll ever get tired of print," she says, running slender digits appreciatively over the leather cover. "It's convenient for travel, but it isn't the same. It doesn't smell the same, or feel the same...or sound the same, when you turn the page." Leaning back against her pillows and carefully drawing her knees up, she brings the top of the book to her nose, closing her eyes and breathing in the scent of it - of paper and ink, the lingering traces of the cool confines of the room in which he stores the collection he mentioned. "Reading is as much of a sensory experience as it is an intellectual one for me."

His joke about the penguin earns him a throaty chuckle, though it sounds like it's about to come apart at the seams. She clears her throat. "Well, lucky for us you didn't go for penguins, otherwise I'll start associating them with you, and then I'll have to start wondering what you'd look like in a tux." There's a sly, sidelong glance cast his way, indicative that she'll probably do that anyway. "Not that I don't enjoy what you look like all the time and it's not as if your sense of style doesn't have its benefits. I'm actually slowly putting together a mix tape for you in the glorious tradition of 90's romantic comedies everywhere and those t-shirts you wear are very helpful in telling me what ought to go in it." Is she joking? The problem with the woman sitting on the bed is that she could be serious. It's totally something she would do!

But at his explanation, her smile fades, holding his gaze for a long moment. It isn't the words themselves, but how he says them, that twigs her to the fact that something has happened. That blunt, flat tone that he uses as an integral part of his defensive arsenal.

She doesn't comment on the vegetables, fighting down the urge to be her usual, confrontational self. She succeeds, if not just because that single session with Vivian is paying its due dividends. "I just want to make sure you're alright, also," she says finally, giving him that straightforward truth. She doesn't press him for details, but... "Are you? Alright, I mean."

Alexander makes a sound, not quite a sound of active protest to her moving, but definitely a sound that suggests that he thinks she should rethink her life choices in this moment - but doesn't actually expect her to. So he just holds the book, patiently, for her to be in a position to take it. "I agree. I don't mind electronic texts for when I need information quickly, so I get a fair number of textbooks and the like in that format. But if I'm reading for pleasure, I do prefer the feel of an actual book in my hands. There's something soothing about it."

His smile reappears, brief and bright, at the chuckle, however fragmented it is. He looks down at himself, dubiously. "Probably the same as I look in these. Just more uncomfortable," he says, with a shrug. Then a surprised glance up at her. "A mix-tape? Really." He seems to be prepared to take her seriously, and scans her face as if the truth might reveal itself. "I suspect that would be entertaining."

When she holds his gaze, he clears his throat and looks away. He's not a good liar, even by omission and false implication, and it clearly makes him uncomfortable to be silently assessed. He even squirms a little in his seat. "My injuries are minor and unlikely to reoccur," he offers by way of reassurance. "And I am very worried about you all, but relieved that you're alive. That's as close to alright as I suspect I can be."

She only manages to make a small wince, dwarfed in the end by the hard, stubborn expression on her face when Isabella manages to hoist herself up, aggravating her stitches and causing a fresh stain of blood to appear through her visible bandages. But she ignores it - the nurses will come in to change them anyway at some point, there's no use worrying about it and she's tired of lying down. And really, the fact that she hasn't ripped off the IV and demanded that she go home is practically a miracle. While he's largely the sort of personality that would sullenly accept the boundaries of his hospital stay, the young woman on the bed is more prone to vociferous resistance. Considering the circumstances, however, she is being very good.

There's absolutely nothing on her features about the mix tape, but with the surprise he demonstrates, brows wing upwards and she can't help but laugh. It hurts, but she doesn't care, her head tilted back into her pillows in the doing, and lifting the tome so she could hide the rest of her expression behind it, green-gold eyes peering at him from the top. "Well," she begins, casually. The fact that he might actually enjoy something like that is ridiculously endearing to her, and she doesn't quite know how to express it. "I guess now would be a very good time to inquire if you actually have a cassette player."

She purses her lips. "Other than origami, what else does Isolde like?" she asks, suddenly. "I'm glad she's alright, and I know she did her best to look after me. She doesn't know me, but I'd feel like a heel if I didn't show my appreciation, somehow."

His evasion does nothing to alleviate her suspicions, and she is doing her level best to resist prying - to table the more abrasive aspects of her forceful personality. It gets more and more difficult the more he squirms but in the end... "I'm...worried about you, too," she tells him simply, quietly...and awkwardly, because she is not accustomed to having these conversations and it is painfully obvious. "I know nothing about what you're struggling with and I would be the last person in the world to judge anyone for going at it alone, but I hope you know that if you let me help you, I'll make every possible effort to."

Alexander does NOT ignore the new bloodstain. He frowns at it, then frowns at her. The squirming shifts to another type of movement, like he has the urge to snap at her to stop moving. But he manages to bite the words back, and presses himself back into the chair, fingertips tapping rapidly on his knees for a moment instead. What eventually manages to slip out is a relatively even, "The more damage you do to yourself, the longer you have to stay." Just a helpful observation.

But the laughter softens him again, and he nods. "I do, actually. I have a stereo stack that still has a cassette player. And a CD player. Most of my music is on one or the other," he admits, with a shrug. To the other question he says, "Isolde likes frogs, and flowers. I think she's more interested in pretty dresses than she'd let on to me, and she likes Luigi - probably animals in general, considering how she's taken to Itzhak's lizard. I think she'd value a friend, as much as a gift. If the two of you end up getting along." Another helpful observation, although this one has that fond and hopeful edge of someone who is a little worried about how well two friends might get along, but wants it to be good.

And then she's saying that she's worried about him, and he gives a guilty sort of grimace. "I'm not...it's not." A sudden, awkward sound. "I got lost, that's all. Minor injuries sustained in getting unlost. It happens. To me, it happens pretty regularly. It's not a big deal, Isabella. I promise."

It could be the fact that single taste of what it feels like to bridge into her own Talent lingers between them, because Isabella can sense the rising urge to tell her to stay put, though the fact that he manages to keep the words back is also a thing that warrants some merit. She does give him a level stare in turn, eyes lidding in what could be construed as a silent warning - she does, after all, have an incredibly expressive face. But there is something about that she appreciates also, and a look that is on the verge of being challenging shifts the opposite way entirely; her sunkissed mien softens, and her lips play up in a smile - she has a thousand different kinds, her personality often the sort that eradicates any visible trace of genuine affection, but the one she shows him now is absolutely laden with it.

"I'll behave," she reassures him. A pause. "....for whatever degrees of behaving I'm actually capable of." Well it wouldn't do any good to actually lie to him on top of everything else, would it?

His description of his musical apparatus has her inclining her head at him. "You don't have a record player?" she wonders. "Music's gone a long way but vinyl's still the best way to capture sound." Lips quirk in a visible, impish grin. "It's the one thing hipsters actually got right."

Dresses. She rarely ever wears them, herself, always leaning towards that comfortable line between fashionable and functional; she still remembers that adventure in Morocco three years ago, and how helpful it had been to have been wearing jeans and boots at the time. There's a resigned look on her features as the memory fills her mind, though with amusement also - she could be one of the few people in the planet who can count getting shot at among her list of fondest recollections. "Okay," she says. "I'll ask her if she wants to go shopping for one once I have my legs under me again. Byron's birthday is coming up and Vivian hasn't called me about staying with me, so I'm assuming they worked things out somehow." She makes a visible face. "The party's formal."

Itzhak's name has her inclining her head - it doesn't sound familiar, but she doesn't have much time to explore it when that gentle pressure from her starts to put some visible fissures in his defenses - but ones that are serious. Unconsciously, Isabella grips the Liber Sacer in her hands as she watches him.

To me, it happens pretty regularly.

She barely hears him through the rush of her blood, the cold wash of that frozen, icy sensation corcuscating down her spine, squeezing somewhere within her chest and leaving it difficult to breathe.

It's not a big deal, Isabella.

Her fingers grip the book tighter.

I promise.

Those two words nearly force it out of her, the shriek threatening to build somewhere within that perpetual inner turbulence of her. The urge to reach out for him and grab his shoulders, to make him understand that it is a big deal and it shouldn't happen regularly is so overwhelming that the fact that she hasn't lurched out of her bed to do so - and probably embarrass herself in the process - ought to be counted as a herculean feat of legendary will. But she uses the book as an anchor, because to act this way would be tantamount to confessing her own sins - it isn't just for the sake of her pride, but he is burdened enough by his own already. He doesn't need any more of that, especially from her.

She fights it down, with such determined, recalcitrant ferocity that for a moment, her eyes actually look more gold than green - burnished amber amidst streaks of its cooler counterparts.

"....how regularly?" she asks, finally lifting her head to look directly at him, clutching at the book like a lifeline without knowing it. "I'm..." Lashes fall closed in an effort to reclaim the tatters of her calm and stitch them back together. "I'm sorry. For pressing. I don't mean to, I just...I know you know, better than anyone I know, how to navigate the Other Side. You fight, and you win." He wins, and those two words carry with them the softer inflections of her own admiration, and that measure of jealousy in the fact that she can't seem to do the same. "It's just...not a place I would want anyone I know venturing in with any manner of frequency."

Alexander unbends enough to give her an arch, amused look. "So I won't get my hopes up," he says, regarding her promise to behave. "Just don't tear anything vital, Isabella. I'm not among those in the town who can put you back together." There's no resentment about that, nor insecurity; his powers are the one area where Alexander seems to have total comfort in himself, even his weaknesses.

The question about the record player gets a soft chuckle. "No. Since they became popular, vinyl and record players have both become considerably more expensive, and I was an 80s kid. Cassette tapes all the way, for me. Then CDs. Never really had the nostalgia for anything earlier, and the quality differences are miniscule for the type of music I typically listen to." A smile, then. Then an arched eyebrow. "You want to take Isolde shopping?" A blink. "I...well. If she's willing, then I hope you have fun."

"And of course the party is formal," he says, and now his voice is very dry indeed. "But you'll look gorgeous, Isabella. And I'm sure you can find something that mixes formal wear with body armor. They probably make that for adventurous archaeologists." Now he's definitely teasing her.

But he turns serious as he notes the change in her demeanor; even if he doesn't necessarily know the cause behind it, he can see the intensity of the emotion and study her body as if it might reveal the context to him. His voice is casual. "It depends. About once a month, usually - although if I've been attracting attention, or just on someone's cosmic shit list, it can be more frequent." A shake of his head. "I don't mind talking about it, Isabella. I just don't want you to worry about me. You should be worrying about yourself."

Just don't tear anything vital, Isabella.

Her face there changes also - inscrutable, too many emotions conflicting with one another. And she knows; Isabella turns away instead so she could set the book carefully down on the other hospital table, away from where Alexander is sitting.

He reminds her of their age difference and when she turns to regard his face again, her earlier expression is gone, wiped clean by the wry twist of her mouth and brows lifting upwards towards her hairline. "Well, I can't say I'm not jealous, just a little bit," she tells him, sinking back into her mountain of pillows and loosely curling her arms around her torso. "You're from the generation that came out with some of the best movie classics of all time." The last Star Wars film of the original trilogy, Back to the Future, the Goonies...she could go on. The ease of her seemingly unshakeable confidence returns, her head tilted in her pillows to watch him sitting by her bed. "Anyway, it's just a suggestion - I don't know if she would like to go, but it can't hurt to ask. And if she's not the type to make the trip with someone she hardly knows, I have a backup plan. I just..." She pauses. "I don't know where I would be if she didn't keep an eye on me while I was incapacitated."

He seems to be confident enough about her appearance at said formal boat cruise, and she laughs. "I'm not talking to an unbiased audience, so I don't know about that," she ribs him openly. "And contrary to popular Hollywood exaggerations, I don't go out there in the field to get shot at all the time. I'm an archaeologist, not a spy!" A pause. "....that would be really cool, though," she admits. "Though I wonder if the videogame Feminine Armor stereotype neatly translates to real life. You know, the less you wear, the more protection you have?" She playfully wiggles her brows at him. "Maybe I should show up at your place afterwards."

It's a good diversion and would have been effective until he turns that intense, scrutinizing look towards her, an effort to read her without actually doing so. Vaguely, she still remembers the way he forced his way through her mental defenses - and they aren't exactly easy to breach. The words attracting attention threaten to crack that already damaged facade further and she tilts her head downwards, those long, wavy bangs obscuring her eyes.

"You can't tell me not to worry about you when I tell you the same, and you do it anyway," she tells him quietly.

She takes a slow breath, and lifts her head to lock gazes with him, her expression serious, internally girding herself for what she is about to say. "Talk about it, then," she murmurs. "It's not as if...I don't know...what it's like. In there."

And all the things it could take from someone in the blink of an eye.

"Jealous?" Alexander stares at her, frankly astonished, until she continues. Then he laughs. "Do you know, I've never thought about it like that. I suppose there were some fairly decent movies when I was growing up. I never really watched a lot of them. Played video games, instead." A grin. "Rotted my brain, I guess. And no, I think it's a good suggestion. I think she would like that." His expression grows pensive. "Actually, I think she would just like being told what you said. I have a tendency to," he coughs, "treat her like a child, in her eyes. It would be good for her to hear someone value her like that." His smile tilts sideways. "It's probably good for me to hear someone value her like that. I don't like to see her in danger, but it's good to know that she can keep her head and try to help others when she is."

Her laugh draws one of his own from him. "I don't claim to be unbiased, but I suspect there isn't a person who would disagree with me, either. Although now I'm worried you're going to go out and find the most hideous gown you can, just to prove me wrong." A glint of humor in his eyes. "But if you're going to be wearing a formal dress bikini in the hopes it'll make you invulnerable, then I definitely want you to stop by afterwards." There's something low and masculine in the words, as much as they're humorous.

And he holds on to his humor even when she turns more serious, this time. Maybe because what she said was blatantly true, revealing his hypocrisy in a way he can't easily deflect from. "I just don't like talking about when I get lost," he says, gently, still smiling a little. "I don't know what it's like for other people. Some people seem to have good experiences over there but..." he shakes his head, "I'll be blunt: the meetings with the Archivist have been the most positive things I've ever experienced from the lost places. Ever. Other times, some things might start out good, but it's just a trap. And I don't like to think about it, or think about the things I have to do, sometimes, to get out of there."

He looks down at his hands. "But. If you really want to know, Isabella, then we'll talk about it. But not here. Too many memories of psych holds," he adds, dryly. "Once you're better, we'll have an evening where we can talk about it." Then he looks up. "If you'll talk about certain things with me, too."

His admission about how he treats his friend, roommate and past orgy-partner delivers unto Isabella's features a dry, almost exasperated expression - it is downright articulate in its silent description of men and their more infuriating, ridiculous ways. "Because any girl or woman past the age of eight loves that," she tells him, as unhesitating as ever when it comes to striking him with the barbed end of her observations. But the way he laughs softens her demeanor, in turn, finding some relief in the sound - that he's able to banish his earlier fury, for the moment, by releasing the tension in different ways. Eyes lid, ever a creature that is wholeheartedly attached to the things that she likes, hedonistic in a way, even in this, savoring the sound of his mirth and the way his face changes whenever he deigns to express it openly.

"Don't underestimate her," the green-eyed woman tells him simply - it is both a remark, as well as advice. "But if you think she'll be receptive of my opinion of what she did for me, then I will tell her that when I see her."

His extremely accurate prediction about the dress has her staring at him for a moment, before she sinks further into her pillows and starts laughing - unfettered joy and pleasure, and no small degree of astonishment that he pegs her so quickly within just a few weeks of knowing her. "Chiffon and taffeta," she tells him gamely, with emerald irises glinting with amusement. "In fluffy neon layers. And then I'm going to find out where you live...." Because that is always a safe prospect for any man clearly interested in a woman as tempestuous as the young woman speaking to him. "...And sashay into your living room looking like a gigantic life-sized rainbow cupcake. I'll even find a hat to match. It'll have a cherry on it."

She relishes this, clearly, banter interspersed with serious conversation, wits sharpened into foils and fencing at one another across an intangible mat. Though when he switches tracks and clearly goes right for the formal dress bikini visual, her smile tempers in the corners - she finds enjoyment in his words, the blatant flirtation back (because sitting there, stitched together, her hair a mess, and her lips almost completely devoid of color, she knows that the only way she can flirt is outrageously and with no hesitation), but it's the way he pitches them with that voice, low in the way that electrifies every single pleasure center in her brain, that has her looking away under the guise of tucking her hair back behind her ear. She does, however, turn her eyes sidelong at him there, that familiar velvet look within them.

"Idle threats," she murmurs, challenging him still, swinging her foil for a riposte. And then, she grins wickedly: "But I guess I am looking for that Princess Leia costume after all."

What he says about the Veil and its dangers returns a more solemn face to her, and her fingers lift to toy with the pendant around her neck...only to realize it's not there. She blinks and starts searching around for it, reaching for the plastic bag and that familiar spot of iridescent color she finds, winking at the light. She didn't have to hunt for long, as if she knows, always, where it is. That tight expression, brief, when she couldn't see it, eases away once she has the plastic bag in her hands. "When I was a child, it was a place of both horror and wonder," she says, busying herself with opening the bag. "Now it's..."

She falls quiet, the pendant resting in her palm, her thumb rolling on the blood-stained surface. She doesn't continue the thought.

"I'm not surprised," she finally says. "The more talented you are..." The more they want you.

She sneaks a glance at him, his eyes diverted down. "Alright," she says, finally. "Let's talk about it. Not here, but...wherever you would like." She furrows her brows, trying to put herself in Vivian's shoes, going back to their one session. "....wherever makes you feel the most comfortable."

If you'll talk about certain things with me, too.

The caveat, because of course there is one. Air traps within her lungs and for a moment she stares at him, as if frozen in time herself, the beautiful bit of jewelry glinting in her hand, chain dangling from it. She searches his face, affording him a glimpse of that undefined sorrow, flitting past her eyes like something with its own corrupted life.

Her sins. Her recklessness. And what it had ultimately cost her. A knot, hooked and barbed, lodges into the back of her throat. She had told him once before, that she was not fearless...but facing them on is her go-to. She just doesn't know if she is ready.

Would you really ever be?

"...alright," she whispers, the look of her almost dazed, almost in disbelief as to what she's agreeing to.

But what choice does she have? It could be the only way. She is utterly incapable of surrendering, of not trying again, and again, and again, no matter how much each significant failure ultimately destroys her, and chips at her already shattered heart.

Alexander makes a face at her. "You don't have to tell me it's stupid. I know that it's stupid. Isolde is a survivor. And you don't get that way without being competent." His hands flutter. "I'm trying to be better." Exasperated, although as much at himself as anyone else. "But I do think it'd help. People like to know when they're appreciated. And sometimes it matters more coming from a relative stranger than it does from someone who you know cares about you."

And then his guess proves to be right, and he laughs with her, shaking his head. "You're a stubborn creature. And - I have no fashion sense to speak of, so you know, it's all doomed. You could walk in wearing pastel liederhosen and actual cupcakes, and I'd still just see you. So," an easygoing shrug, "wear what you like, whether that's lace or taffeta or gold lame. Or a Princess Leia outfit." That last a bit dry.

One eyebrow rises at the riposte. He just holds her gaze for a moment, and says, "Try me."

And then it's back to the Veil, and that's harder to hold a smile - or other, more pleasant emotions - through. He watches her reclaim her talisman (and that's clearly what he thinks of it as, for her - a talisman of remembrance, protection, and perhaps something more), thoughtfully. "You went there as a child." This is new information, and he's careful how he says it - not quite a prompt or question, but open to elaboration if she wishes.

But when she agrees, his shoulders ease, and he smiles, offering her an out from discussing it further with his, "Maybe your place. The water is soothing." Maybe an olive branch of sorts, to pick a place he sees as thoroughly 'hers' rather than 'his', in hopes that she might feel more comfortable.

Amusement continues to linger on that sun-touched visage as Isabella drinks in his expressions - the shift from serious, to jovial to exasperated, especially at himself. He, too, can be expressive when he wants to be, and throughout the last several weeks, she has seen his own profile slip through the various gradients of the human emotional spectrum - a far cry from the bland and twitchy attention he has given her the first night they met, though she had seen glimpses of these other ones, also, in that first night. It may be further evidence to what she keeps telling him about people constantly changing.

More laughter, more smiles, and her own grows absent at every little change she witnesses on his features; when he names her stubborn, it changes the tone of her own, though, more along the lines of you don't say! in the end (which, really, could equally apply to his very self-aware observation that he has no sartorial acumen whatsoever). "There's nothing really wrong with how you dress," she tells him definitively, undoubtedly shocking several of the more infamous fashionistas in Gray Harbor if they were ever within earshot of that statement. "This is the PNW, you blend right in and in your line of work, there's more advantage in blending in than standing out." She is no stranger to field work, and she's led various expeditions herself under the supervision of Dr. Langston. "That and I know when you're properly motivated, you can dress nicely and even the smaller changes do wonders. I told you before, Mister Clayton, the dark, broody loner thing works for you." She inclines her head at him, features carrying both pleasure and satisfaction as she continues, "I remember you dressed up for me the day we were meeting up."

And I'd still just see you.

In the end, it's the last comment that gentles her expression, surprise and that elusive, undefined quality that flickers past her eyes on occasion, that stabs the tip of his foil somewhere through her ribcage. She's been around, she is not wholly inexperienced when it comes to men and she's been with different kinds, but they tend to fit a certain pattern that largely focuses on their confidence. This completely guileless remark - honest in the way he delivers it - lands that familiar, twisting ache that she is slowly coming to associate with him. For a moment, she says nothing, unable to reply, for once in her life rendered completely speechless in an arena where she wields a certain verbal mastery.

This is completely new to her, left floundering in new territory - but she recovers quickly and tells him, quietly, softly, and not without a hint of teasing: "Can pick me out of a crowd, huh?"

It's intimacy of a different kind, and one that she is unaccustomed; like fitting the right shape in the wrong slot. But he helpfully salves that ache at his level look and those simple two words dump a sudden shock of white heat into her rushing blood, and searing through her open veins, her pulse ratcheting its pace a few notches. She forces herself to slowly exhale, her face tilting slightly, lifting her chin and giving him a glimpse of those familiar, defiant lines. "I will," she murmurs. Another promise. Another warning.

The moment hangs, tension stretching to its tensile limit, silent and heavy, but thrumming as if alive, and she breaks it by clearing her throat and turning her eyes back to the necklace in her hand, rolling her thumb absently in an attempt to get rid of the blood dried upon it. "Several times," she tells him, her voice soft as she busies herself with her work, brows furrowed. A distraction, in the end. "My brother could find the doors. That's what he called them, the points where you could slip through." And then, even quieter as she closes loving fingers over her jewel, "We both could."

She forces herself to release a breath slowly, and when she looks up, she finds his smile again. She returns it - it isn't hard, when he tells her about the water. "I do, too. I was always drawn to water. The Reedes always tied their fortunes to the sea. I couldn't break away from tradition even if I tried. Even when my Aunt Mary decided to stop ghost hunting, she moved to a place close to water." She inclines her head at him, mischief gradually returning. "Are you sure I'm not getting to you?"

Alexander stares at her, skeptically, through her defense of his shabby dressing style. "You make me sound like an anthropologist, studying the Greater PNW Hipster, or something." It hasn't eased his insecurities in that regard, but it does bring a brief smile to his face. "I'm glad you're okay with it," he adds, at last. Then inclines his head, still solemn. "Yes. Out of most crowds."

Then he grins at the lift of the chin and the promise. "Well. Now we have something to look forward to, yes? When you're out of the hospital and feeling better." If he has concerns about his ability to follow through on that challenge and that promise, Alexander is not admitting to them now. It's too nice to see her in this vital fashion, after the way she was when he came in.

But the conversation moves on, and his grin moves away with it. "That was dangerous." Which he's sure she knows, but cannot resist saying. "And who knows? You might be a little contagious. But the infection brings a pleasant fever with it, so I think I'll stay a while." Although, then, he looks at the door, and says, "But I probably shouldn't stay much longer now. I believe they mentioned needing to conduct more tests. Or something." A grimace at the endless perfidy of hospitals.

She laughs quietly as she leans back against the pillows. "If you're willing to be given a few simple tricks that won't change your style much at all, then once I'm feeling better, I can dispense some helpful advice if you want it," Isabella tells him. It's worth it though, that defense, when the smile returns and betrays the more boyish aspects of him that his dozen-year difference from her would suggest. "Though honestly I don't know how I'm going to last another day here." Comical resignation slips over her lightly-tanned mien. "They were trying to feed me pudding, Alexander."

She tends to recover quickly - akin to a bouncy clown in a way, gets back up almost immediately no matter how often she has been punched. But when he clearly doesn't back down from the things she says, she can't help but laugh again, uncaring once more as to what kind of aches and pains that delivers. "Honestly any excuse to get out of the hospital, at this point, would do wonders for my spirit." She searches his face. "But the book, the flowers and the octopus make it worth it." A pause, and her lashes slip lower as she murmurs. "Being able to kiss you, also, even if it was small."

After a moment, she clears her throat and once she's scraped off the last of the blood, she slips the moonstone pendant around her neck again, letting it rest close to her heart, unable to quite meet his eyes when he tells her that it's dangerous. Because she knows. She had resisted reason, then, full of bravado as she was, the confident folly of a teenaged girl who thought herself powerful and free of consequence.

He isn't leaving yet, but she groans, pushing herself back to her usual, incorrigible self. "Don't leave me with these people," she sighs, slumping on her cushions and actually looking petulant for a moment or two, the curve of her lower lip shaped in a faint pout. But after looking at him askance, she smiles. "I wouldn't actually force you to stay here," she tells him. "I know you hate hospitals. We'll be fine, Alexander." A more serious note returns to her, then. "Be careful?"

Alexander studies her, considering and weighing the offer with probably more seriousness than it really deserves. Especially since his only answer is a quiet, "Maybe," in return. He stands, then, and looks down at her with fondness. "You'll survive, and get out of here as quickly as possible. But you'll survive until then. Don't eat the pudding, though. That's where some people say they put the microreceivers. To send them updates on everything you eat and drink and are used to develop targeted advertising data."

That is said with what appears to be utmost seriousness. And concern. The pudding, Isabella. Don't touch it.

He clears his throat at the mention of the kiss, looks away. Not quite embarrassed by the words themselves, but apparently by how pleased they make him, that she's apparently enjoyed their contact, however brief it might have been. "And I don't want to leave you here, either. But they frown at people abducting patients. If you need it, though, just let me know, and we'll fight our way out."

That also seems entirely serious, although he moves to the foot of the bed. "Rest, while you're here. Because I doubt you'll give yourself the chance once you're not."

Don't eat the pudding.

Isabella squints at him slowly, the slow narrowing of her eyes a deliberate thing, making the resulting skeptical expression all the more pronounced. "Well, no worries there," she tells him, simply, dryly. "Carbs, Alexander. Haven't you heard? The female body wants to be pregnant all the time and I like being a size four."

But her flat look dissolves in the wake of that brilliant, cutting expression, eradicating, with extreme prejudice, the encroaching darknesses of her earlier memories. And it lingers when she watches him look away. "Oh, god. Don't offer me something like that if you can't deliver. It wouldn't be the first time I fought my way out of a ridiculous situation because I was being particularly stubborn and set in my ways." She reaches over and takes her octopus plushie, fingering its tentacles. "Ask me about Casablanca, sometime."

She looks up from the stuffed toy, before she presses her lips on the plushie's little beak. She then passes it to him in a light, underhanded toss from her end of the bed. Should he catch it, it'll stare up at him with those big shiny eyes. She watches him, clearly expectant.

Kiss the octopus, Alexander.

You know you want to.

"I'll..." Her jaw works. "Well, good thing you brought me a book I've never read before, it'll keep me out of trouble." Pause. "...for a few hours."

The octopus is caught, deftly enough, despite his surprise when it's tossed to him. He gives her an amused look. "You know I wouldn't offer if I wasn't prepared to do it, Isabella. But, fair warning, my mother would never let me live it down. She used to be a nurse here. But if avoiding carbs will keep you from getting tracked for the Big Data Complex, then I'm willing to accept that." A sidelong grin before he gives the octopus a gentle kiss on the plush beak, then tosses it back towards her, aiming to land in her lap.

"He's gonna report for me, you know. Make sure that he has only good things to say." A wink, before the nurse appears at the door, and Alexander is gently but FIRMLY directed to be elsewhere.