2019-08-21 - Sword and Shield

Each shot cracks loudly in the predominant silence of the forest, the sound reverberating off their surroundings' natural acoustics. The distant echoes of wings taking flight follow after, a torrent of feathers spilling towards the verdant ground below.

It has been several long days since the two of them have escaped the dreary confines of Addington Memorial Hospital and in different stages of recovery, but signs of their well-being are at least apparent by the fact that they feel well enough to take the trip, to take one of their vehicles and venture off-road to a quiet and secluded place to discharge firearms and take advantage of the weather. But in the Pacific Northwest, to expect the air and shade to remain dry is a dicey prospect at best and when they do finally settle on a location, while the sun remains visible, drops of water have started to cascade from the clouds, shattering the daylight in fragments and leaving streaks of color at their wake.

She doesn't appear to mind the weather, or the mud and even appears to enjoy the sudden turn of a clear day into a rainy one. She had worn a baseball cap in the drive up, but this has been discarded - the better to feel the water soak into her hair and leave her suntanned skin sprinkled with dew, drops clinging to the stubborn line of her jaw and dark brown tresses against her cheeks. She even looks rejuvenated amidst it all, but that is not surprising to any familiar with her heritage - the Reedes of Gray Harbor were seafarers and explorers throughout their history, their fortunes have always been tied to water and the sea.

The young archaeologist is dressed differently today, but in a way that unerringly matches her adventurous inclinations - cargo pants that sling low on the hips, well-worn hiking boots and a black tanktop that buttons up the front and fits closely against the narrow taper of her waist. Her jacket has been left in the vehicle and the rain is warm enough that it is more refreshing than cold, leaving her complexion devoid of the usual goosebumps. She is presently lying on her side, one leg curled and knee braced against the ground as she adjusts one of the things she has brought with her - a sleek, long-barreled sniper rifle, her father's favorite Nr. 1 Barrett M82. The muzzle is propped against a log to steady it - had she brought a stand, priming and aiming would probably be easier for her, but as always, she is a young woman unafraid of a challenge, and tends to seek it out on even the most insignificant areas.

The marks she had hit - spare bottles that they had tied to the boughs of a few trees, swing broken from twine, the jagged edges of their broken surfaces glittering under ambient illumination. And being so environmentally conscious as she is, she has even brought sturdy biodegradable bags to put the pieces in once they're done.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," she tells her companion conversationally as her slender form flattens onto her stomach once her adjustments have been made, rolling her shoulder back in preparation to brace the rifle against it. She looks over at him, green-gold gaze sweeping over his predatory features from underneath sideswept bangs plastered on her skin, laughter within them. "Some part of me wishes the weather managed to stay, though." She tilts her face up and closes her eyes, raindrops clinging to her lashes. She doesn't seem to mind at all.

The captain drove, of course. He wouldn't have had it any other way, and Isabella likely knows him well enough by now to know this.

His ride is a dark blue Chevy truck of some recent make. He's put a little work into it, but nothing too ostentatious; a rig for hauling, a modest lift kit for off road adventures most likely. He's brought a few guns along, too; a small selection from his arsenal. A Sig Sauer P320, military grade and menacing. A Blaser R93 tactical, ugly utilitarian thing. Another one that he leaves behind in the glove compartment before they climb out of the truck and hike out to the spot Isabella's got in mind.

He's dressed in a dark tee shirt and track pants, the latter for freedom of movement, most likely. Sturdy, scuffed hiking boots, a zipped-up vest over his tee, and a baseball cap that stays on. His hair and beard have been trimmed since she last saw him in the hospital, headed toward mountain man territory; and his movement is a little slower, a little more cautious, suggesting he's still got some healing to do.

Presently, he's standing a few feet off to Isabella's right. Half an eye on her shooting, and the rest on his phone as he answers a few messages. His own rifle is hooked over his shoulder in a sling, and his handgun is holstered at his hip. "Remember to shoot on the pause. Breathe in, pause, squeeze the trigger and breathe out," offers the man in a low, thickly accented murmur.

As she has stated before - she has been around military men all of her life. The fact that Ruiz probably has enough guns to take a small country is not in the least surprising to her.

The truck is one that Isabella examines with interest, in particular the work he has put in to enable it to go on said off-road adventures. He would learn on the drive up that she has always had an interest in classic cars and engines, and tends to prefer the American muscle from anything in the market, though that isn't to say that she doesn't appreciate the likes of Byron Thorne's Rolls Royce Wraith, or Vivian Glass' Aston Martin.

Eyes that miss nothing have noted the slower way he moves, but that does nothing to blunt his dangerous aura; there is a famous saying about the perils of cornering a wounded tiger for a reason.

A lifelong academic, Isabella's stubborn demeanor, at the very least, has her listening to his instructions carefully, but there is something about this place that is slowly chipping away at her calm. That aura of restlessness continues to grow, pervasive and almost tangible in the air as she takes a breath, expanding her lungs, her finger slowly curling on the trigger. She blinks away the water as she lowers her head to look through the scope at the amber bottle hanging a several yards away, swinging in time with the demands of the inclement weather.

The first shot clips it, breaks through the bottom, but fails to shatter it. Her next two shots miss. She shifts against the ground, narrowing her eyes as she hunches forward again, turning her focus on the bottle. She doesn't even seem to be aware of it when she's mired in this relentless need to do well as her concentration sharpens into a diamond-hard point, sinking into the churning torrents within herself - that burning star cradle of her potential gleaming like a halo under water and light. And when she pulls the trigger again, she can feel the bullet leave the chamber, rocket through the muzzle and scream through the distance between her and her target. Through it, she can taste the wind.

It is that sense of touching it that has her drawing back as if stung.

The bottle shatters violently, exploding into golden shards. Isabella lifts her head, watching the remains of the bottle neck swinging on the twine. Her expression tightens, determination masking a certain unhappiness.

"I didn't do it right," she tells him, shifting low again to get in position. "I'm trying again." She adjusts her sights before looking off where he stands. "How are you doing, Captain?"

Classic cars. American muscle. I will take you for a ride in my cruiser, some time, he'd have told her with a rare grin. She's seen it, perhaps; a mean-looking black Charger pursuit, custom built for law enforcement. The engine in that beast might give Vivian's car a run for its money.

One bottle is slivered with shot and the others remain swinging, but there's no censure from the man standing guardedly behind and to the right of Isabella. No amusement, no teasing, like he might have if this were one of his police or military buddies. Not much of a reaction at all. Then that sensation at the back of his neck, and he scrapes his fingers over it as if it might help to stifle it, and the bottle pops and shatters, and he works his jaw slightly.

"Take a break. Give me your gun. Go and take a look at your placement, and understand what you did wrong. When you are using a rifle like that, data is more important than trying to shoot until you get it right." His own rifle is slung off his shoulder and set down, leaned against a tree stump. He holds his hand out for Isabella's, dark eyes on green-gold. "Well enough," answers her question without really answering it at all. "I am not eager for it to happen again, though." He tries to smile, but it flickers and fades. "And you?"

And that grin had been infectious; its rarity makes it all the more worth the earning. Never one to take such tokens for granted, Isabella's answering smile is downright effulgent in its uncomplicated excitement. Later, of course, but he would have been inundated by questions - what year, how fast, and what the most significant differences were between a Charger and a Challenger, and which would win if fitted with the most optimal kits, and in the end all scourged away by the single question: When? she had asked, sitting on the edge of her seat, silently marveling at this newly discovered dimension of their shared interests.

Shared troubles, also. Loss - the kind that is enduring, the kind that no one ever recovers from, however vaguely described, makes for broken, but interesting company.

Take a break, he says and the advice is sound enough - a young woman as slender as she, shooting a cannon that's almost as tall, the physical strain is tremendous, but one that she indulges in with relish. It feels good to exert herself again, after so many days clinging to life, and a few more while sedentary and unable to move however she wants. So there is reluctance, somewhat, when she eases herself away from the rifle and responsibly engages the safety. Knees bend and she rises easily - youth unfailingly helps in recovery, sure and certain fingers curling over her rifle and handing it to him.

The way his dark eyes lock on her own gives her pause, the flicker of a smile that doesn't quite reach its potential. "Makes the two of us," she tells him lightly. "Lungs, the ribs, the heart. I'm not a doctor, mind, but I'm fairly certain that we need all of those." Her smile fades, but only slightly. "Getting well enough by the day," she reassures him. "I've got my full range of motion back. I'm swimming every morning again, and diving. I really missed it, when we were in the hospital."

Her pupils shrink visibly, watching the way his own glimmer pulses faintly around him, making the vibrant color of those irises all the more noticeable while occupied by that intense, incisive scrutiny, before she turns her head to glance at the swinging bottleneck at the tree. I am not eager for it to happen again. Her fingers twitch, once, on her side, before she slips them within her pocket, to bunch them against the lining.

When she speaks again, her contralto is soft, with the lilting quality of it being adrift, as if stepping out of her body. "I can try and help with that, also. But only if you would like." She doesn't meet his eyes, reluctant for him to glimpse the heart of the storms within her own. "I have a feeling that's the only reason I managed to survive what we've been through together, or enabled me to cling to life long enough for help to see to me." There's a wry twist to her mouth, the return of her usual teasing bent rather audible as her set of free fingers gestures to herself, and then at him. "Not exactly built like a supercarrier the way you are."

Soon, he'd have told her. Once it's out of the shop. No other details offered. She'll have to wait until then, for a rundown on its specifications. Not that this newly discovered piece of common ground doesn't shave away inches of the barrier he carefully constructs between himself and others.

He watches her as she stands. Watches her fading smile, and the way her eyes meet his at first, then shy away. The rifle's stock is grasped in one hand, and he uses the other to help hoist it up and check its sights. It's a big, unwieldy weapon, to be sure. "I'm impressed that you can handle the recoil on this thing," he murmurs as he squints into the scope. His hand is nowhere near the trigger, and the safety's still on. It's the weapon's heft and line of sight he's judging. "What type of ammunition are you using? Ballistic-tipped, or?"

The gun is lowered for a moment when she mentions trying to help. He can't quite catch her eye, but he watches her profile; the storm is scented, tasted on the tip of his tongue, even if he isn't privy to its full fury. "I'm not sure what you mean by that," he confesses after a time, hoisting the gun up again. "The wind is unpredictable today. You need to adjust for it two-thirds of the way to your target, not where you're standing. Si?" And then he thumbs the safety off and readies his finger on the trigger. "Move back."

I'm impressed that you can handle the recoil on this thing.

Isabella rolls her left shoulder in a demonstrative fashion, smirking faintly. "I have a hidden advantage," she tells him. "It's not much of one, admittedly, but it helps." There's a faint frown as she casts her eyes away from him and towards the swinging bottles, glassy surfaces glinting in the light - like lanterns or ornaments gilding the woods. "I could also be too stubborn to be pushed back easily, but either way I think I've been concentrating on bracing myself for the recoil too much, it's taking the focus off my actual shooting. In the end, it might just simply be too big for me to handle." She makes the faintest face. "I'm not used to it." But mischief suddenly emerges, banishing the earlier shadows from her expression. "But I always wanted to try it and it wasn't as if my father could take it with him, where he went."

Question on the ammunition has her shifting a little bit, to stand where he was earlier - to the back and right of him, and returning her hands in her pockets. "Standard .50 BMG," she tells him. "Nothing special in the end, I'd feel too guilty if I just started using what Daddy keeps in the house for target practice."

She understands his confusion, but she doesn't press it - not at the moment, not when he's about to line his shot and she falls in silence again as she watches, and learns.

There's no sound from the man, for some time. Just the soft, steady rasp of his breathing as he makes some mental calculations, and finally gives his shoulder a roll, and steadies the rifle in preparation to fire. The shot is a thunderous thing that cracks the air and threatens to knock all 190 pounds of him back. It also misses its mark completely. He drops another round into the chamber, breathes, and fires. CRACK goes one of the bottles. Another breath, another shot, like a metronome. CRACK goes another. The trees shudder with a reverberation of sound, felt more than heard; rippled like a fingertip touched to water, then gradually still.

"Have you cleaned this recently?" is the first thing he asks as he unshoulders the rifle, pops the safety and passes it back to Isabella. "The kick is telling me that your scope is either off, or your bullets are wrong for this barrel. It should come right back to you." He slaps his shoulder to indicate, and tries to recapture her eyes with his own, again.

The cracking shots cut through the sound of falling rainwater and trees rustling in the breeze. There's a pause, lips parting faintly when the recoil slams into the man's shoulder, and launches the bullet to completely miss his target. The way he recovers though, is dangerous beauty in itself. Green-gold eyes watch him intently as he gets in position again and follows through with the next bullets - bottles shower their fragments on the grass.

"Daddy's pretty adamant about gun maintenance," Isabella tells Ruiz, taking the rifle once it's passed back and inspecting the length of it with a critical eye. "Then again, he hasn't been back in the city after..." Her mother's murder. She pushes those thoughts away, tilting her head back to meet the man's eyes, sharp, dark pinpoints finding her own easily in the day, left once again with the impression and sense of him trying to pin her down; butterfly's wings at the mercy of a collector. But there's a smile, too proud, in the end, to let that show. "Does that mean I might not be doing as bad as I thought?" she wonders with a laugh, moving to set it next to the Captain's own rifle, leaning against the tree. "I suddenly feel so much better about myself."

She looks over her shoulder at him. "I'll check it out once I get home," she tells him. "Maybe I'll have an easier time with your rifle."

There's a pause, glancing once more at the swinging bottles. "Sword and shield," she remarks, addressing his earlier confusion, her voice soft and steeped in remembrance. "That's what my brother called it before." When they used to pretend to be magical knights, adventuring through the woods. Her hand lifts, to touch one of the lower hanging boughs of their gun-laden tree. "To move objects, catapult them in dangerous speeds, but drop them when he has to in order to protect himself. Armor, of a kind. Unseen, intangible, but no less real."

Her father is a Navy man, of course. An officer, if he remembers correctly. Which probably piques him on some level, as a point of enlisted pride. "I'm sure he knows about keeping a rifle like this one dirty, then," he proffers quietly, watching the younger woman as the rifle's handed back, then meeting her eyes unflinchingly. His seem unfathomably dark at first glance, but are in truth closer to a shifting hazel; in the fading light of day, washed out and filtered through burgeoning rainclouds, those eyes are closer to a warm, verdant green.

"You're not doing badly at all, considering what you're working with," he replies with some amusement. Never terribly effusive with his praise, though Isabella might just get the impression that those words, coming from him, amount to tacit approval. Then she starts talking about her brother, and he pats down the pockets of his vest for a pack of cigarettes. It's really starting to rain now; the canopy sings with it, as does the dirt at their feet, and the hot underbrush.

"I know a girl who has abilities like what you describe. Breaking things, and putting them back together. Is that right?" His brows knit slightly; he's not as well-versed as some in this vernacular.

An officer and then a commander. The interest in Ruiz's eyes has Isabella smiling faintly. "He does, but it's hard to maintain a collection when his hands are elsewhere, and far gone from here." She turns around then as the rain starts to fall in earnest, though while half-shielded by the canopy above their heads, she doesn't seem all that perturbed by it. She even seems to enjoy it, nevermind the fact that it is soaking into her hair and skin, leaving her a mess. The curve of her spine finds the thick, wrinkled bole behind her.

A prevailing interest in people and how they live their lives enables her to notice certain details about her companion that she didn't know before. Under direct sunlight, revealing the true color of his eyes - and suggestive of the bloodline of Spanish conquistadors somewhere within his family tree - has her tilting her face towards him and the look of her appreciative. They're striking, beautiful in a way that she can't articulate in any eloquent way, the way they shift between shades reminiscent of semiprecious stones. Dark, but also sad, reflective of deep-seated wounds. "I didn't know they looked like that under the light," she murmurs, introducing these facets in the ever-evolving shape of him in her memories. "Your eyes are more green than black, Captain."

That sense of tacit approval has her laughing, most of the sound of it lost in the rain. "I'll take that," she tells him with a grin. "With my lackluster performance, I'll take what I can get." She reaches in her pocket to produce a pack of gum, glancing longingly at the pack of his cigarettes once he produces them - a habit that she quit long ago; she probably still enjoys the scent of burning tobacco.

Breaking things, and putting them back together. The archaeologist shakes her head. "I don't think it's the same," she tells him softly. "Between Sid and I, he was the savant. If he were here, he'd probably tell you more than I ever could." She hesitates, but after a moment she closes her eyes and sinks into herself, submerging herself completely in the churning wells of the Talent. And once she is there, she takes a breath - it is pleasure, it is bliss, and as she slowly, fully embraces what she has denied herself for over a decade, she is nearly overwhelmed by how it tastes, and how it feels. Like an alternating bath of hot and cold. Like passion and pain.

It feels like Home, and it is exciting and addicting and to her, especially, it is the latter half of that volatile equation that is terrifying. Her breath shortens as she sags into the trunk, lips parting.

The rain stops.

The water doesn't touch them, and while it may cascade all around them, he'd find the two of them in what amounts to a bubble, sheets of moisture diverted away from them, but underneath their canopy, there is nothing but cool breeze and the air. It rustles through his hair, and her own, but there is no moisture save for what's already clinging to their clothes and skin, the brim of his cap.

"Alexander calls it moving," she says, her eyes still closed, fighting down the old, remembered fear as it threatens to claw its way from up her stomach. Her fists clench within her pockets. "My brother called it pushing, when we were children. Both are accurate, I think."

Green, except when they're that washed-out, gunmetal grey. Usually when he's angry, or.. at other times. Of great emotional intensity. Tonight though, they're green; paler, though, and lacking the vibrancy of Isabella's arresting emerald and gold. Her comment earns a twinge at the edges of his mouth that isn't quite a smile, and he studies her for a time as she takes up that lean against the tree. Dark hair damp and mussed, trickles of rainwater starting to slip along her jaw and catch on her eyelashes.

He shifts his gaze to the broken bottles still dangling by their necks from the boughs of a distant tree. The occasional breeze sways them, like hanged men. A little too soon, by all accounts, given that he was one of the first responders on the scene of that gruesome discovery.

"I did not say your performance was lackluster. You shouldn't read into my words. You are learning, and the best way for you to learn, right now, is to study your mistakes. As fucking trite as that sounds." A cigarette is withdrawn and tucked between his lips, and lit with his hand cupped around it to ward off the rain. By the time he's pulling from it, he can taste the beginnings of her gathering power. He can practically feel it, though damned if he knows what she's doing, precisely. His eyes shift back to her, and he's transfixed, unable to look away. He nearly steps forward to catch her when she slumps back; but the sudden cessation of the rain, like something's causing it to simply absorb into nothing, gives him pause.

"Mierda," he exclaims softly, lifting his hand to try to touch whatever it is.

"You didn't," Isabella murmurs, though she doesn't sound as if she's inside of her body - either out of it, or deep within it. But there's a smile, leaving the look of her absent, and almost dreamy. "I called myself lackluster. I try to adhere to your standards in the endeavor as much as mine, Captain."

He'd feel it, the distant roar - like rushing water spooling over fiery energy, this wholehearted, impassioned embrace into the maelstrom that sits within the seat of her torn-apart soul. It slips through his extrasensory field in a torrential rush, liable to spike the adrenaline of those who are so attuned with their survival instincts. The rain slickens their barrier, drops lingering in the air as they fall, akin to slipping down glass so pristine, it is almost invisible. And as he reaches out to touch it...

...he'd feel it, the touch of it - like a wall of air as matter and kinetic energy transmute themselves into this strange, otherworldly effect. His fingers would be able to pass through, like slipping through an indescribable field of sensation, but otherwise, he'd find very little encumbrance in doing so. And as he stretches out further, he'd feel moisture slipping through his digits, collecting in his palm.

They coalesce into drops and all around him, he'd feel the power shift. Water scatters like diamonds, glittering under the sun, and they fall upward, towards the leaves above their heads. Water was always the easiest for her to control, she had told someone else once. It's true even here.

"I embraced this when I was a child," she murmurs. "I was active, even then. I always kept getting scraped up, injured. But no matter what I did, they were never as bad as they should be. The shield's been with me all my life. Despite my efforts, it never left me."

He says nothing more of his standards, or hers. Nothing more of her aim, or his tutelage with the rifle. He simply stands there for a time, fingertips touched to that point where the bubble ends and the outside world begins. The contact has a taste, and a scent, and it reminds him of her.

"Your brother," is perhaps an inauspicious start to what he wants to say. "What happened?" It's a question that's been on his mind since he first met her. Not in so many words, of course; but he's known her pain, the shape and the texture of it, long before he had any sense of the why. It's the curse of his supposed gift; to know others, sometimes better than they know themselves.

His hand extends beyond the protective reach of the barrier, then withdraws again. Damp, little rivulets of rainwater sliding against inked knuckles.

It feels like water and tastes like fire - of distant hurricanes and uncontrollable conflagrations that raze the earth in its driest months, without moisture to quench them. It feels like it could drown him utterly, just as it could have him soar over the pinnacle of her aims, because if there was anything Isabella has always wanted to do, it was to fly - away from Gray Harbor, and all that it represents for her.

And something else. Something that lurks deeper from within the center of all that volatile and distracting activity - presently out of reach.

Your brother, he begins.

Inauspicious, yes, and what catalyzes the sudden cessation of the effects she is producing. The bubble vanishes, leaving them in the Summer rain's tender mercies, as if in reminder - as if someone that has been forcibly woken up from an engrossing dream. Her heart bangs hard in her bones, the realization that she has lost herself again in the swirling depths of her, fear tightening her lungs as green eyes dart around the forest, biting down everything inside of herself that threatens to scream and wants to run. Because it's too easy. It's too easy to slip in all of it again, too easy to forget oneself.

She uses him as an anchor, when she reminds herself that he is there and she is not alone. Emerald irises and their filaments of gold fall on him, panting quietly, her chest rising and falling at the strain of it.

What happened?

"I lost him," she tells him softly. It is the truth, but not the whole truth; the words are simple, but carry with them the network of her sins. After watching him for few moments, she continues: "Who is Karin?"

It's fascinating. Distracting. And like nothing he's ever experienced before; he didn't grow up here, in Gray Harbour, where he might have been exposed to such things. Maybe where he's from, some little fishing village on the edge of an austere, coastal mountain range.. maybe where he's from, he was the only one who could do what he does. He starts to see that deeper, lurking thing taking shape, though try as he might he can't quite touch it.

And then, in a heartbeat, it's gone. And the rain comes in, and his brows knit slightly as he drops his hand. Contrition? Perhaps.

"I know that you lost him. That much, I was clear on. Pero no es así.." His tongue lashes his lower lip with some agitation, and he paces closer to Isabella, and her lean against the tree. "It doesn't tell me what happened." Her return volley causes his eyes to harden, just a fraction, and his shoulders to knit with a subtle tension. He's quiet for long enough that it may seem he won't reply. But then, with another step closer, "My wife." Five feet, ten at the most separates them.

She knows. It's fascinating, it's distracting.

It's dangerous. It's addictive.

It tastes like pure, unbridled obsession, fueled by the siren's song of power and she knows that, too. Knows it more than she can express to anyone - can't, without shaking.

Isabella takes a breath, wondering just how she has managed to get here. All she wanted to do was try, to swallow down that familiar fear, and do something useful and good for a man who has done nothing but try and do the same for her. But she should have known, really. She has known this ever since she was a child - nothing about the Talent was ever simple, especially the costs.

He takes a step forward, but surrender is not in her vocabulary. She stomps on the urge to run and pushes away from the trunk. Rain continues to plaster her hair on her face, weighing it down her bind, leaving it half spilled over her shoulder and the white line of her surgical scar, marring her tan.

"He disappeared, when I was sixteen," she tells him at last, her eyes wandering away to look further into the woods. "I was..." She closes her eyes. "I can't expect anyone to understand." Nor would she explain it, but a predator like him can taste it in the air. Even this barest revisitation of the moment terrifies her, despite the way she pulls her meandering stare away to look him in the eye, because her pride won't allow her to do anything else.

Searching his face and the hardened stare, her demeanor softens, but the tension in her remains a persistent thing. "I'm sorry." The words are quiet and perhaps coming from anyone else, it sounds obligatory. But it isn't, not from her, she who is reminded of her losses every day in the manner that he is. "I wish you didn't have to carry it. It gets so heavy." Her lashes slip closed, rainwater coursing down her cheeks.

"So heavy..."

His eyes slide across that scar, then back up the line of her shoulder, her throat, to rest on her face again. He can smell her uncertainty, as surely as a wolf does in its prey. Glimmer has given him that, too. He continues to prowl in closer. Closer. Until the prickle of his body's heat can be felt, and the charge of his own power; his shine is so much fainter than hers, but there's something artificial about even that. As if it were shattered at some point. Smothered, almost destroyed.

"I don't understand," he admits. His voice roughens as it's pitched a little lower, "But I know." And he does; his eyes say as much. Right before they shutter down again, and that hard line returns to his jaw. "I don't need your sympathy. Is that why you asked me here tonight? To talk about this? To try to help me." His palm is placed against the rough bark of the tree, inches from where she was leaning. "I don't need your sympathy, and I don't need your help. Lo entiendes?"

That's strange, too, this fragmentation that she can sense. He'd know that she can feel it, because those green-gold eyes sharpen and a jagged shadow forms between her brows. Her pupils shrink at the strangeness of it, but she does not reach out. All that power, that potential, and yet she hesitates and even shies away from it despite that wholehearted embrace she had demonstrated earlier. Gallingly, maddeningly, infuriatingly contradictory.

The veracity of his words is just as tangible as a hand against her throat, and Isabella feels it constrict when he meets her eyes and speaks those three, devastating words with that guttural inflection. There is no step back, no matter how much she wants to, when the distance between them dwindles inch by deadly inch, his palm bracing on the space by her cheek, over her wounded shoulder.

"I know you don't need it," she says at last, after doing nothing in that long, almost interminable silence just watching his face. Her chin lifts in that determined, defiant, stubborn angle, the softness of her earlier expression burned away by those green-and-gold embers. "I know you don't need my help. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to give it, from trying to at least offer, in the same manner as you've showed me. Because I worry, also, and it can't be helped. I can't help it. I'm the kind who keeps trying. And I'm sorry, if it's annoying and ridiculous, but it's true - it's part of me. It's like breathing to me. I don't know how to quit."

Her lips press in a faint line. "But that's not all. I wanted to see how you were. I wanted to learn. I'm..." She swallows hard, her voice dropping to an agonized whisper at the admission she is forcing through clenched teeth. "I'm no good to anyone, the way I am. I'm afraid, but it's not in me not to fight, and I'm here with you now because you offered to teach me what I may need to know so at the very least, I'll know how, even if the rest of it is hard to stomach."

"You wanted to learn.. what?" Of all the things to get caught up on, he chooses this one. The rest of her words, for now, are sloughed off and left as they are. Un-challenged, un-questioned. "And what makes you think you are.. no good to anyone? The way you are." He doesn't move in any closer. He doesn't try to touch her; he's a terribly, terribly tactile person at times, once he lets someone in. Or once he invites himself in. But it seems he won't breach that line, with her, today.

"It isn't annoying. Or ridiculous. You're putting words in my mouth again." She didn't, precisely, but he tries to shut it down regardless.

What makes you think you're no good to anyone?

That's a harder question to answer and Isabella's jaw clicks shut, wordless, watching the stormclouds of his own expression. Ruiz is an intimidating creature in the best of times, and whoever feels completely safe in his presence has a severely dented sense of survival, and it takes everything in her not just to shrink back against the tree. A heel digs in quietly in the soft dirt underneath, to prevent her from doing so.

She takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly; his cigarettes carry, but so does the rain and the mineral notes of freshly-moistened earth.

"I keep failing when it matters." To say it is difficult too, her words are barely audible when she says them. "When it matters most." And I don't know how much more I can endure. This is not an exaggeration, but she gives him no context for it.

"Guns, first," she murmurs, followed by a faint smile. "And then maybe later how to do more than the basic punches."

He could push her to elaborate, there. He could try to force her to give him the context he's missing, because it's maddening to be working with such vagueness. But occasionally, very occasionally, the man is capable of reeling himself in instead of going on the attack. His teeth dig into his lower lip as he watches the younger woman from such close proximity. Then gazes up at the canopy for a moment, and the rain that barely reaches them through the blanket of leaves. He sniffs away a trickle of dampness that's found its way along the tip of his nose, and drags his hand off the tree with a peppering of bark and flecks of moss.

"Guns first," he acquiesces quietly, not reciprocating her smile. He sniffs again, and reaches for the Sig Sauer holstered at his hip. It's tugged out, flipped around, and held out to Isabella grip-first. "Back to the basics. Take it." Crisp, military precision in every word, every motion.

Her eyes there are direct and steady, as if she could sense him wanting to attack; to embrace the predator he is and tear the side of her throat open in an effort to reveal all of her secrets. And Isabella is ready for it, because she knows - but fear is a powerful motivator and her terror revisiting all of the things that have driven her to this is real, and while she is doing the best she can to face them, she isn't forthcoming either.

She knows it is maddening, she knows. But she isn't ready.

Will you really ever be?

Thankfully, Ruiz seems to sense that and the fact that he lets it go releases a breath that she is not fully conscious of holding.

The Sig Sauer absorbs the light, black under the shadow his bigger frame casts, and slender fingers reach out in an unhesitating fashion to grip it. "Okay," she murmurs, her eyes finding his, gratitude within them.

"Thank you." Soft words, but true, ripples of sincerity from the deepest core of her.