2019-08-30 - Lost and Found

For all intents and purposes, this latest visit by archaeologist and scholar-at-large, Isabella Reede, to investigator and current hospital inmate, Alexander Clayton, isn't just to fulfill a joking promise to him, or to just to see him when a very specific conversation has weighed heavily on her mind since twenty-four hours ago. The fact that she had just spent some time with Byron on a boat with a hundred or so of his closest friends has only impressed the fact upon her that there are other conversations that she should be having.

It's already dark, and late, the skies outside of his window heavy with a canopy of stars. Another unusually clear night has settled upon the city and in a manner in which the local light pollution is unable to quell, outlining the silhouettes of distant mountains and highlighting the horizon's line over the water - the only visible boundary between the heavens and the ocean at this hour. The outside world is handily barricaded by sealed glass planes and plaster, though there is plenty of activity that can be heard in the ever-active corridors of the only major hospital within miles, peppered with the low conversations of medical professionals conferring with one another. She stands out immediately, when she walks down this familiar white hallway, and ducks into the man's room.

There's a surreptitious check on the man's roommate - the bed is empty, the other patient discharged earlier this afternoon, but that space will not remain unoccupied for long.

She's brought some things with her - a small white box with a few of the hors d'oeuvres served at the party as well as a small slice of birthday cake, and a set of plastic utensils that she managed to steal from the hospital cafeteria on the way up. The spread on the cruise had been incredible, a reflection of Vivian Glass' sophisticated and expensive tastes, though how she has managed to smuggle a figurative doggy bag away is a mystery on its own. She is clearly not above it though, when she walks towards Alexander's bedside - he would be unable to miss her if not just for the way her heels are clicking on the floor.

Heels. Throughout the entire time she has been here, she prefers a casual style of dress, forever entrenched in the line between stylish and functional that she unerringly favors - jeans, and loose tops, sandals, sneakers, all shelved today because of the dress code on the boat. Her hair is loosely curled, then swept up to pin in a drifting cascade at the back of her head, clad in a black, form-hugging sheath that leaves her shoulders and back bared to the elements, held to her body by straps that wind around her throat and leave the extra lengths to follow the shallow channel of the sleek, suntanned line of her spine. It is nothing revealing, never one to be ostentatious or overtly sexual in her choices of dress, but the silhouette she has chosen accentuates her long, elegant lines, highlights what is already there and is reminiscent of a style from the golden age of Hollywood - Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's, translated seamlessly into the twenty-first century.

"Sorry I'm late," she murmurs, setting the box on the side table and leaning in to press her mouth over his forehead, her moonstone pendant swinging at the gesture, forever on her person and practically iridescent against the darkness of what she has chosen to wear. "The boat was crowded. How are you feeling?" Her skin is warm, touched by strawberries and the ocean, sporting still the telltale flush of a few rounds of dancing.

Alexander has had visitors, it's clear. He's got a little monster plush thing sitting in the bed beside him, there are flowers on the table, and someone brought by a book, as well. The remains of hospital dinner have just been taken away, and he's on his phone, click click clicking through the internet. His data bill is going to be dastardly this month, just based on this. He's been moved to a double occupancy room, and his roommate is sleeping. His roommate sleeps a lot - but, in fairness to the guy, he's broken two limbs and is on some decent morphine.

For his part, Alexander is ALSO on decent morphine, which blunts the edge of his usual suspicious and twitchy nature. He glances up when Isabella comes in, and offers her a bright smile, one that lights up his whole face. He gestures to the chair to welcome her in, and lifts his face for the kiss. If she's not quick, he'll tilt his head further back - ignoring the pain this causes his stitches - and try to steal a quick, soft kiss of his own. He flicks the phone to new windows, and type types. Ting! Text sent.

Not late. Always good to see you. How was the party? There's a slow, appreciative look given the dress. You look wonderful.

His bright smile can't help but make her groan inwardly - not just because it never fails to quicken her pulse, but also because it never fails to remind her that there are other things she would rather be doing than what she's about to do. But at the tilt of his head, Isabella doesn't deny him; one hand extends to draw the divider curtain shut around his bed with a blind flick of her wrist - she doesn't care if the other patient is sleeping - and her other hand lifts to touch his cheek with light fingertips. Her mouth, too, is warm when it touches his, softened even further by beeswax balm, and carries the sweeter notes of what she has imbibed in the evening - some high quality Prosecco, some bittersweet chocolates.

She perches herself on the edge of the bed, legs crossing at the knee and glancing down at the smartphone text. There's a smile, something exasperated within it. "These sorts of things always make me feel like a strutting turkey," she tells him with a low laugh, tugging on the straps around her throat. "Associated PTSD on the staid academic balls I've had to attend before, where no one's listened to anything after Dvorak walked the earth and absolutely no appreciation for 90's Jerry Bruckheimer movies." She tilts her head at him, a loose curl brushing her cheek. "You're looking better, and I'm glad other people visited you. I know I spent a few minutes complaining, but really the party was fun. I wish you could have attended." Less out of a desire to have a plus one, and more because she misses seeing him about, radiating his usual dark, severe intensity and internally bemoaning the missed opportunity to flirt with him in public. She is comfortable and confident enough in her own skin to show up stag for a function.

Searching his face for a moment, she sighs. "Something came up," she murmurs. "As much as I would like to say that I came here just to see you."

Alexander's expression turns wry as she expresses that wish for him to have attended. He shakes his head just a little, and then taps out an answer on the phone. I cannot imagine Thorne would have been pleased to have me there, and fancy parties aren't really my thing. I have nothing to wear that could match you. He turns that last bit into a tease rather than a complaint by waggling his eyebrows dramatically when he sends the text. Ting!

He reaches out for her hand once he's sent the text, caressing the back of it briefly, then letting his fingers skate up her arm to the loose curl at her cheek. He twines the lock of hair around his finger for a moment, then delicately moves to tuck it back behind her ear. Then, back to the phone. I'm glad you had fun. I hope Thorne and Dr. Glass did, as well. He doesn't text the question that comes to his eyes when she murmurs at him, just tilts his head to one side like a confused dog - then winces as it pulls things in his neck. A 'go on' gesture will have to do.

A glance at her phone, followed with an apathetic 'eh' sound, though Isabella's green-gold eyes flare with good humor when she professes her reasons: "There are ways, and if you had been there, we wouldn't stay there for long." A brief, but unforgivably brilliant grin. "And neither would your clothes." He is, however, right about Byron's views on the matter, though all of the conversation thus far is clearly teasing. Even if he had been well enough, she wouldn't have tried to convince him to come, if not just because she's not an insensitive enough monster to ruin Byron's party by bringing someone he doesn't approve of.

She's as always painfully responsive to his presence - he has a way of touching her that is so threaded with the white-hot intensity of the chemicals between them that he draws arcs of electricity and goosebumps over skin and sense without any effort (something that she never fails to find both exhilarating and galling at the same time), mottling visibly at light pass of his fingers up her arm, though she continues to meet his eyes directly throughout. Her face turns into his hand once it reaches the curl, her cheek, reminded of the first night he worked up the gumption to touch her in his own accord, to do the very same thing. Her lips touch lightly on his inner wrist, closing her eyes and taking a breath. Never one to fully process her emotions, these pieces only add within the pressure cooker inside herself, working like a timebomb, unable to say anything about what she returns to the longer he stays here, of hot crimson life - his life - flooding her fingers at her attempts to staunch the bleeding.

"Captain de la Vega had a conversation with Byron. Well, a few. Byron was up front with him," she begins quietly, for his ears only. "I think he's reached his limit. He doesn't think we'll be able to have a box built and the Three found in time to prevent the next death. I think the plan is to push for Thomas Addington's immediate commitment and if that doesn't happen..." Her voice trails off, but the look of her is profound as to just how she intends to end that sentence. "...I don't think the Captain will embark on a serious fight alone, he's too much of a pragmatist and I think he's attached to his life, also, but I can't predict what he would do outside of that context. He and I are similar." Reckless when riled, impulsive in their best days. "...in the event that is necessary, he's asked Ronnie to start asking who would side with him."

She falls quiet, before she speaks up. "I vehemently stressed the need to wait until Erin gets back to us, at least. But I think we have to work faster, now."

You're dangerous, Alexander texts back to her at her teasing, although he looks rather proud of that fact than warned off by it. Does make me want to get a tux. Just to see how long it takes to get me out of it, at your skilled hands.

He leans back into the flat hospital pillows and regards her with unabashed fondness. The mention that Ruiz was having conversations with Byron, though, that takes the shine off of his smile, and as she continues, the smile disappears completely, replaced by his blank look of concentration. He doesn't text his response. There are some things he doesn't want there to be a written record of, and what sounds like a prominent businessman and a police captain plotting intimidation and/or murder is definitely one of those things. He just stares at her for a long, long time.

When he finally does pick up the phone again, he types carefully. I don't think that will work. Not parasite. Prisoner.

Does make me want to get in a tux.

Isabella stares at him, open with her incredulity; it didn't seem all that long ago when they were talking about style and clothing and she leans over to peer at his face closely, green eyes wide in an exaggerated fashion. "...who are you, and what have you done with Alexander Clayton?" she asks in a hissing whisper, before she smothers a laugh with another kiss.

When he settles back down, her free hand extends, to thread into the fingers of his unoccupied hand, thumb absently brushing over rough knuckles and coarser skin. She says nothing for a very long time, in the end, but her jaw is set and her eyes are determined. "I think all of us can agree that we want nothing more than to find a conclusive end to the situation," she tells him quietly. "But like I told Byron last night, not all of us will agree on the methodology in the end." She does nothing more than that at the moment, examining his captured appendage; worn knuckles, long fingers, the faint scars that mar his complexion there.

"I was told when they found the bones, it was found outside the Veil's version of City Hall," she continues. "In a cardboard box, probably not the one we're looking for, but if we read it, we might know where to start looking. Vyv Vydal - the patissier? He was the one who brought them back. I know the bones and box were relinquished to Doctor Faust's custody that night and I know you picked them up the night of the seance." She knows because she drove him there. "Does she still have the container? I can take it to Byron to have it read."

Alexander blinks, wide-eyed, at her at the teasing comeback. Type type - he hastens to type out a reassurance that he is Alexander Clayton and that nothing has been done to change that...and then she can actually see the moment when he realizes that's a joke, and he just as hastily deletes the message before it's sent. The kiss is nice, though, and he returns it with enthusiasm - he tastes a little like blood, unfortunately, but that's just the price you pay.

He listens with a furrowed brow, then shrugs. Typing. Never saw any container. Dr. Faust got bones from mortuary I think. Gohl thought about a PINE BOX, not cardboard. But not in any detail or so I could identify it if I saw it. A deepening frown. Dr. Faust is dead. I could get into her house, but I don't know what I'm looking for. She was moving, so a lot of cardboard boxes.

The copper-tang of his own blood is one that Isabella hardly even blinks about in distaste. Out there in the world for a decade and change, she's definitely had worse.

The fact that even the receptacle that brought the bones back might be lost has the young woman tilting her head back and closing her eyes, in a visible attempt to stamp down a wave of frustration, likely to blow her apart and fountain from her chest in an uncontrollable geyser. It isn't directed at him, but rather the situation. "I know it's not the one we're looking for, but if we had it read, we could maybe get impressions as to what happened to the box before it got to the Veil's City Hall. A face, images, something." Her grip on his hand grows tight.

There's an open grimace at what he says. "The only person I know who might is Rebecca Carr," she murmurs. "And she knows how to project images. If it's lost in her house...if it's still in her house, and if I had her and what she remembers of it...maybe I could find it."

She chews on her bottom lip - just the idea of it, of going past her little tricks, causes a faint tremor on her interlinked hand. It steadies, however, when she draws a breath. "I don't know how successful that'll be though. It's been years since I tried."

Alexander watches her frustration with sympathy. He nods, slowly and carefully, about reaching out to Rebecca; that's enough to say he thinks that's a good idea. But he also holds up a finger, then types.

Might be another way, too. Didn't you say there were words written? Where the bones were found? Maybe we could go there. Read the words. See if there are clues.

He looks at her with open curiosity at the last - the area of Glimmer Alexander knows the least about is the physical, the gifts his mind has never opened to. Type type: You can find things? A faint smile; as always, despite its dangerous and the care that must be taken with them, Alexander doesn't fear the powers of Glimmer, but finds them fascinating. This new discovery clearly excites him - but it's just as clear that he's trying to keep things on a subdued level, so as not to cause her distress at the thought of accessing her abilities.

Might be another way, too.

Isabella glances down at the text, before her brows furrow - that is new information to her, and she shakes her head. "I had no idea there were words. What were they?" She pauses. "...another something to ask Miss Carr, I think, if you don't know what they are." But the idea of going there, though...

So far, she had been fortunate - her most recent forays within the Veil all occurred in indoor spaces - within City Hall, within Two if By Sea. The prospect of investigating the areas outside of those buildings, in open air, where its darkness and strangeness could go on for miles, however, earns Alexander a long pause and an aversion of those green-gold eyes, fixed somewhere on the side of his pillow. Fear, yes, but frustration, also, because she remembers what she has just tried and she can't. She's no use to anyone in such an endeavor.

"...I want to," and that's the honest truth. But I don't know if I can. "If I can't, you should go, once you're better. With Miss Carr and Mister Vydal, if they're willing. If the house doesn't pan out. It's likely that it won't, so we'll at least have a back up plan."

The text calls her attention back to her phone, and she flashes him a small smile. In spite of her obvious misgivings, the expression she finds on his face is one that she can't easily resist. "My brother and I used to compete to see who was the better treasure hunter," she tells him. "I used to be very good at it. Finding lost things, hidden things. We would explore the old family house, try and find secret passages, that sort of thing. I tend to be..." She hesitates, furrowing her brows in an effort to put her thoughts to words. She gestures with her free hand. "...very spatially aware. Even without consciously using. There was a time in my life where I could walk around a room blindfolded, without tripping on anything."

Alexander's nose wrinkles with distaste. Not at the question itself, but having to answer it, having to type into his phone the answer: Billy Lives

He gives her a shrug. It would seem likely that whoever wrote those words might have been whoever took the bones out of the pine box and set him free. Might be useful to know, if nothing else. Ting, message sent. He considers her in silence for a long time - silence of the fingers as well as of the mouth, although probably not silence of the mind. No, he's got that look about him, like he's thinking about a lot of different things at once. Then he nods, once. Types.

Back up plan. Yes. A small smile as she explains her spacial awareness and her affinity for lost things. He looks down at his phone. Considering his next words carefully. Eventually, he types out the message. A lot of that is still in you. Your profession, your heart.

Billy Lives.

The set of Isabella's jaw grows visibly set at reading those two words, mirroring his distaste, but there's no disagreement to what she finds in her phone. "Like I proposed before, if there's a way to find the original box, there might be a way to try and find who created it. I always knew on some level that we'd have to go back through the Veil eventually to get the answers we need, now that we've got a building picture of it. I wish we didn't have to." And I wish I could come with you.

His consideration - silent, dark and intense - earns him a look that's a little more wary. She has only truly known Alexander Clayton for a span of a single summer, and she would never admit to him that she is always looking at him, watching him, whenever they are in the same room together, but it's not surprising that, given this tendency and her memory, she is presently keeping a mental rolodex of his masks and facades. When he does articulate his thoughts at last, though...

Her expression softens. "I don't know," she confesses quietly. "Maybe. A lot of it feels gone, or unreachable."

After a moment, she clears her throat, and squeezes his hand. "When I told Byron about the box and the Three, he said something that got me thinking. About the Addingtons."

Alexander nods - going through the Veil isn't his favorite thing, either; even though people have mentioned that the Veil and the Dreams that periodically torture him aren't exactly the same thing, it's hard for him to keep them truly separate in his mind. He doesn't necessarily want to go there, either, it's clear. But he sighs and relaxes again, squeezing her hand just briefly before turning back to the phone. Nothing's ever entirely gone, Isabella.

But that's all he says on what's clearly a sore subject for her. He can't resist poking a little bit - it's just not in him to not poke - but he tries to keep it minimal. So when she clears her throat and moves on, he tries, as well. What's that?

Nothing's ever entirely gone, Isabella.

The archaeologist hesitates, glancing down as the fingers clutching her hand. "...some things should be," is what she says to that, her voice low and intimate in every sense of a savage confession. But after a moment, she lifts his hand, pressing her lips gently on the space between his second and third knuckle. Leaving her phone face up, she lowers their intertwined hands, her other moving so she could sandwich his on both sides. Fingers absently trace his skin, her smile taking on a more absent bent. "I like your hands," she tells him. "Your fingers. Not quite a scholar, not quite a warrior. Somewhere in between." She turns it over gently, if he allows, drawing her index over the life line in his palm.

After a moment, she speaks up. "Byron asked about the Three, and wondered whether they would all have to be of Addington blood," she says, lifting her gaze to find his own. "Since Thomas has kept the Ghoul at bay for fifty years and was able to until now. I can't help but return to a few basic principles of my work and how it's a glaring reality within it that Time erodes all things. Moving back to your earlier comments about the Ghoul not being a parasite, but a prisoner, I wonder if Byron couldn't be right. If Thomas was able to keep this away from others for half a century, maybe the Three needs to come from within the family. Maybe there are three Addingtons not from the older generation, but the current one who are able. When I asked about it further, Byron told me that Thomas has three grandchildren in town. We already met one - Hyacinth Addington. There's also a Cherish Addington and..."

She furrows her brows, and he'd get the impression that there's part of her that still can't believe it. "Frankie Dubois." Would not be apparent to be an Addington. "I went to school with her. She's the product of an affair. If all else fails, I guess we can pursue that also, but that's just guesswork on my part based on what we've been given so far."

Alexander's eyebrows go up, way up, at the soft but savage rebuttal. He doesn't try to type back, not to that, but it's easy to tell that it's being filed away into his mental archives - but under what category, that might be something that warrants further consideration. Later. For now, her lips are on his hand, and he can't help his eyes closing in pleasure at the feeling of her skin on his. He doesn't object to his hand being sandwiched, or kissed, or turned - or, one gets the impression, anything Isabella Reede decides she wants to do with his hand, at all. He only turns his fingers slightly this way and that so that he can indulge in the occasional brief caress on her skin as it exposes itself to touch.

A twitch of surprise, and interest, at the revelation of the Addington bastard. Intense curiosity there, only barely leashed by the fact that he can't ask questions, he has to type them, so he has to think about what he says and the efficiency of certain avenues more carefully. Or get finger cramps. After a moment, he gently withdraws his hands so that he can type his response.

That IS three people. But I don't know if it has to be Addingtons. Either way, it sounds like building the box will be esoteric - we should seek out Dr. Kosimar's advice. Her protections saved my life. I remember that. She may not be one of the three, but she might be able to tell us what we should be looking for, to confine something like this.

The changes in him are staggering when it comes to her, this willingness to savor what she offers, and gives in turn; as if Alexander had decided, somehow, to catch up on the last how many years he had spent denying himself the barest human contact with another person. Momentum, of a kind, like a boulder careening in a devastating wake down the side of a mountain. And she is unable to help herself, too, in this indulgence - not because of the fact that she is lonely, even if her profession can be, but because she is a tactile creature and the physical world is her domain, always willing to lose herself in her five senses.

Isabella doesn't protest, though there is reluctance plainly evident on her expressive face when he gently withdraws so he can communicate. She waits patiently for the text, glances down at the screen of her phone, its blue-white glow taking up the side of Alexander's bed. There's a hint of a smile. "I know," she says. "Like I said, it's guesswork on my part - logical hypothesis based on what's been fed to us so far. But I agree with what you say about Minerva...and after what happened, something tells me..." More than something, her text is still in her phone. "...that she would like a chance to make it up to you. And I-- " She holds up a hand, as if she could physically stay him. "Already know what you're going to say, but seriously? Let her have this. The more you open yourself up to people, the more willing you have to be to accept allowances like these. Letting her view it this way would make her feel better."

She falls quiet, chewing absently on her bottom lip. "That's one way of viewing it, but the only other time I ever came across three as a significant number connected to all of this was from the beginning." Her eyes find his again. "The picture, with my ancestor, and the collection of women from three families - Baxter, Addington and Whitehouse."

Isabella CAN physically stay him with that raised hand - if only because he can't talk. The exasperated expression he gets at the idea of Minerva owing him anything, or her needing to make it up to him, is pretty expressive on its own, though. He grabs the phone, and types.

She's the only reason I'm not dead. Gohl would have opened me from one side to another if not for whatever she set up. Frustrating. But I do want her help. Desperately. Never got a summoning to work, or any of that shit. She did. I'm desperately intrigued. ::smiley face::

The remark about opening himself up to people causes him to wince and look away. He puts the phone down so that he can run his hands through his hair. Like he's still ambivalent about that being a good idea or not. But, slowly, he nods. Accepting that Isabella knows people and how to handle them better than he does. He considers the rest, and picks up the phone again. Not sure about Baxters. I got the vague impression that we weren't considered dangerous because we were Baxters. You and I. But it's all - it was a brief connection and then he got all throatcutty, and that was a problem.

She is unable to hold his gaze after the first text - it isn't out of guilt, or out of jealousy, or even the yawning sense of failure that tends to plague her whenever she can't prevent anything terrible to happen to someone she cares about, though there are elements of all these things present in what he can glimpse from her profile. But mostly it is how she had almost lost him that night, and it is taking everything single ounce of grit and fury inside of her to keep herself from imploding underneath all of it. Her pulse tics like a waiting incendiary on the side of her throat, unable to be hidden by the way her hair is arranged. She can still feel the way his life gushed over her fingers.

It's almost reflexive, when Isabella's fingers curl into her lap. "I'm sure she'll be willing. I'll text her once you've gone back to sleep, see if she's willing to come see you at the hospital." She manages a smile, directed his way. "Don't look like that, though...you signed yourself up for this. Might be a little too late to back out now." Sorry, Alexander, but not only did you end up with a...whatever the hell she is in his life, but he's got a roommate, a professional network and a growing circle of friends who care about his well being. Adjustments are required.

His point about their family line is a good one. "Makes sense," she murmurs, slowly easing her fingers from their tight curling. "In biological terms, if blood is a factor, you and I would be more compatible than not - less chance of rejection in the body. The Addington connection is sounding more and more likely, honestly, considering the fact that Thomas was able to keep him in check for half a century before the mechanisms were starting to give."

Alexander makes a sound. It wants to be a word, but whatever word he wanted it to be, it's not even remotely like that. It's just a painful, frustrated sound that doesn't do anything to convey anything EXCEPT pain and frustration. He stares at her for a moment, then sets the phone aside and reaches out for her to clasp part of her arm and drag her closer. Into the bed with him, if he can manage it, but at least close enough so that he can snake his arms around her and give her a fierce, almost painful hug.

She has kept her perch by the side of his bed, turned to him, though unable to look at him except in the times when she's able to talk to him and engage his mind - and her own, because it is the only thing that is keeping her from...

...from...

It's easy for him to do what he does; she's already close, and half on the bed, and the distance isn't so great that it's impossible. Black silk drags over rougher linen, pooling up and around her knees when she's forcibly dragged over to him, and Isabella can feel the bits of panic that are starting to swell upwards in a furious tide because she knows what is about to happen, and she is doing her level best to prevent it from happening. Ensnared in his arms, her face buried against his shoulder, she tries. Green eyes fix on the wall behind him and she tries to take a breath. But that proves to be a mistake because she can smell it on him - the antiseptic, the blood, and scent is the most effective way to trigger memory.

She doesn't trust herself to speak once she's enveloped by his bigger body, eyes burning with traitorous moisture. The most instinctive parts of her try, to find a place inside of herself that she could extend - to reach out to him. To call for him, and bury her terror, anger, and these barbed pieces of her own self-castigation into the inner wells of him. To have the stars and terrible lightning intensity of him reduce them to ash. She tries. Her eyes squeeze with the effort to extend herself in this way mentally. She tries.

But within the shattered landscapes of herself, it's too dark, and she's too lost and how can he even find her in the state she's in? It feels like pressing up from underneath leagues of ocean, crushing her breath out of her at every attempt and what leaves her instead is a strangled half-sob that she buries somewhere in the shadows under his jaw, arms around him and fingernails clutching the back of his gown.

"Don't..." she manages. "Don't let go yet. I just...I just found you, it's..."

Alexander doesn't even want to attempt talking, not at the moment. Nor does he reach out with his mind, even though everything that he is wants to; wants to just reach out for her and enfold her in that core of him, without misunderstanding or evasion. But he has no idea how she might take that, especially in her current state. So he lets inadequate flesh do the talking for him, and squeezes her tight, her lovely and elegant dress pressed against the paper-thin hospital gown, close enough to feel the beating of their hearts through each other's skin, and he holds on to her, kissing her hair and trying not to pull his stitches while he cuddles her on the too narrow bed.

Her broken heart thunders against her skin, pressing against the scar that Sheriff Addington had given her as a souvenir, so close to ending her career on the corporeal plane just a few weeks ago, so loudly that she could swear he can hear it, racing in the recklessly uninhibited way in which she lives most of her life. His silence inspires her own, and all she can do at the moment is tangle her fingers and nails into the ties of his hospital gown, clutching as tightly as her own strength could allow. It's painful, it's ferocious, but some part of her relishes it too - to be held this way, the intensity of it. Her eyes squeeze shut when his breath stirs her hair.

It leaves Isabella with her leg thrown over him, most of her cradled by his chest, words spilling across her mind in a rapid rush; the terror of watching his life slip away through her fingers, how the light in his dark eyes started to fade - how furious she actually is, that he would gamble with his life in this way, and at the same time, how ferociously proud she is that he would, because he would be unrecognizable - he wouldn't be the Alexander she knows - if he didn't try. If he didn't risk it.

She could say so many things. She should. He could be gone tomorrow, carrying what's left of her heart with him.

But she is who she is, and what she comes out is a frustrated and intensely passionate: "You drive me crazy." Whispering against the uninjured side of his throat.

You keep saying that.

He doesn't say it; his throat isn't up to that many syllables at this moment. He doesn't try to insert it into her mind, either. But maybe she can feel it anyway, in the way Alexander's mouth curls into a smile where it's pressed into her skin, or the strange little noise that might be the closest he can come to a chuckle. He holds her, shifting to the edge of the bed so that they can sort of kind of fit (and also answer a question - while Alexander is not usually a cuddler, being far too restless for that, when bedridden and on morphine, he prefers to be the big spoon, even if she's curled into him rather than technically spooning). His breath is slow and steady against her, and he doesn't try to justify any of his actions, or even reach for the phone to provide context.

Instead, he just nuzzles her, and holds her, and will continue to hold her until she gets tired of it, or a nurse comes in and scandalized - or at least exasperated by the danger they're doing to his IV hookup.

Well, of course he does. For all of his willingness to please and to be vulnerable when he's expressing his emotions, Alexander Clayton is still a man - and an intensely masculine one at that, when her most favorite expressions of him tend to be drawn from moments like these. But his smile does much to mollify her, soothes the raging inferno of her even as she clutches onto him like a lifeline. Mired in her own minefield of revisited hurts, the way he treats her now acts as a balm - a calming, balancing effect that she hasn't experienced since she had left Gray Harbor the first time.

It isn't perfect; there are parts of him that are broken off, and she is presently unsure whether his jagged edges would be able to fit her own. But none of that matters at the tilt of his body, when he turns them both over on their sides, her hand reaching up to cup the injured side of his throat so he won't aggravate his stitches any further. Her touch there is gentle, soothing, warm - instinctive desire manifesting in an unconscious thought to wish him well, to get better soon. She doesn't even seem conscious of it, because despite her fears, the power that's inside of her is part of her - her birthright, just as natural to her as breathing.

She doesn't know what came over him, in the end, and should he look down at her, the question is in her eyes. But she is not complaining in the slightest and thus rearranged, her face turns to find his mouth with hers, slow in the way he likes, always one to take his time exploring the parts of her that she freely gives him, but he can taste her intensity through it, the passions that run as red as her blood, and the vestigial remains of her fright - all wrapped up in the breathless desire to keep him close, and well, and alive, because to lose him now would be untenable. It couldn't be borne.

She tries to say it but she can't, and conveys the message to him this way instead.

Alexander shivers as she touches his throat through the bandages - he expects it to hurt more than it does, but the way his own power resonates delicately against what Isabella is doing - consciously or not - that he recognizes. He doesn't bring it to her attention, but it catches his; until this moment, he didn't even realize she was a healer in her own right. The last time she used it, he was a bit too out of it to feel it in the same way. This, too, is filed away into his mental archives.

He meets that questioning look with a warm one of his own. The kiss is a welcome thing, a delightful thing, and he gives himself over to it without reservation. He draws it out as long as they can both bear it, and when they have to break away for a breath, he whispers, her healing reducing the swelling enough that he can actually make the words, although they're still harsh and gravely, "I just wanted to touch you. I like that you're real, Isabella. Just you, as you are."

And about then is when the nurse does come in, and gives the two on the bed a clearing of the throat. She doesn't say anything. Just clears her throat, and goes to check on the sleeping roommate. But the throat clearing has a lot of emotion behind it. Alexander's grip on Isabella loosens, and he tries not to laugh, mirth dancing in his dark eyes.

The longer she stays here, the more she remembers. The things she can do, the things she used to do - much like taking a breath. Between them, Isidore Reede is the genius, the savant - but she was still his sister, bonded to him since birth, privy to his thoughts and his experimentations and the remembered, phantom limb of doing these things with him hand in hand. While the terror remains, from roots that she has yet to tell him, the incontrovertible truth is that this is just as much part of her as anything else. She simply doesn't embrace it as wholeheartedly as he does, or the others that he chooses to spend time with. But it is natural, seamlessly so.

When he lifts his head at last from her, Isabella's eyes are half open, lips slightly parted and swollen from his kiss, breathing hitched and her own tremors visible when he whispers at her like that, when he looks at her like that. Her heart lurches in a different way against her ribs, his rough syllables finding her ear - the sound of his voice is enough to spread that warmth through her chest, and had he flashed her that lazy, confident, masculine smile he's showed her before while he said it, she might actually die. She would never admit it, but it's pretty damned close. "...you're not being very fair," she tells him instead, the words whispering in the shadows hanging between their faces, though she doesn't explain why. The hand on his throat lifts to touch his cheek. The words are rueful. "How am I going to flirt with you now when you're so sincere in comparison?"

So quick, still, to don humor as armor.

But she falls silent for a moment, watching his eyes, her thumb absently tracing quiet circles on his cheek. After a few moments, her lips part, as if to say something - but the clearing of the nurse's throat catches her attention. She lifts her head to glower at her with a half-lid look, and really, the picture they make - occupying a narrow bed, with her evening's finery draped all over him, one leg tossed over his hip.

"I promise I don't intend to get pregnant this evening," she tells the woman, the low throaty contralto remaining, though she very much sounds like a disturbed and disgruntled cat. "He nearly died two days ago, let me have this."

And with that, she reaches out, grabs the end of the curtain divider and draws it around even further around his bed. Glancing down at his mirthful eyes, she huffs. "There. If that doesn't convince you I'm real enough as I am, nothing will." But the devil is there, as visible as anything, frolicking in those evergreen fields.

"I like the flirting," Alexander rasps out. "But I'm not always fair. Sorry." Spoiler: He's not sorry. He's not even particularly sorry when the nurse's voice comes, and Isabella's glare causes laughter.

Her WORDS, on the other hand, cause him to shrivel. In all possible ways. Pregnant. A terrifying thought, even in denial, even in jest. He just stares at her, dark eyed and shocked. Like he didn't know that was a possible consequence of all this canoodling on the narrow hospital bed. Or got reminded just when his brain was starting to contemplate more than canoodling. Not anymore.

He does manage a laugh, small though it is. And even a kiss, on the tip of her nose. But his hands stay carefully in safe zones, and he says, "Probably should let them work. She'll come to check me next, and it makes me grumpy. But - this was nice. You're beautiful."

"You know, I'm starting to think that you're not actually sorry," comes the tart response, turning that green-gold glower at him. She is visibly, however, trying to hold back her own laughter. It's not working very well.

If he had told her that he was actually thinking about more than a few kisses, Isabella would have probably stared at him like he had grown two heads. Because that's the last thing she needs, in spite of her adventurous and shameless self, to watch his stitches snap from the strain of hungry movement and have blood spraying everywhere in the middle of an experience that should be as if not even more incredible than the mere two times they'd been with one another, and she would like to experience more of that without the danger of him hemorrhaging all over her. Because she still remembers what it looks like, and it was traumatizing enough, Alexander!

The look of pure terror on his face, though - she can't help it. She laughs, openly, if not quietly and she buries her face into his shoulder in an effort to bury most of it against him. "You're so male," she tells him, equal parts fond and exasperated - fond because she likes him, exasperated because as if.

But she will let the nurse work, and she slowly extricates herself away from him, sliding off the bed and straightening up her dress. "I'll talk to Minerva and Rebecca tomorrow," she tells him. "And I'll keep you posted." Watching his face, a smile eventually follows, lowering her head to press a kiss on his forehead. "Try and get some rest, and I'm glad you think I'm beautiful. Keep this up, and I'll start suspecting that you might actually want to keep me."

She pulls away at that, her face hovering over his. "Anything else you need done while I'm wild and free out in the world?"

Alexander doesn't speak any further - he'd like to keep this functionality in his throat, which means not overstraining it. But at her commentary about his maleness, he pretends to lift the sheet and check. He gives her a thumb's up, and a wink. He reaches for his phone. Nothing else. Just be safe. He sends that. Then he copies it, pastes it, and sends it again. Fixes her with a dark-eyed and serious look, before the nurse peels back that curtain, and gives them both a stern look.

"If you two are quite done..."

Alexander puts the phone aside and puts his hands up in surrender.