2019-10-21 - The Key To Something

By looking at Isabella's face once she breezes into Two If By Sea - with that big, relieved smile and an easy stride - one can be forgiven to think that he's never seen anyone so happy to get back to work.

And it is work, but it is something that she should actually be doing, rather than all the other problems that have plagued their wide network of friends and acquaintances for an entire summer. Progress on her thesis and a great and much-needed escape to Seattle has brought back much of her mischievous manner and good cheer, and while she has yet to completely process her grief, she has at least given herself the opportunity to remind herself that the world can be a beautiful and happening place.

She tends to stop by Easton's establishment right when it's about to close, if not just to spectate on a few bad decisions happening in media res while having a scotch and wind down for a night - a tradition that she has adopted only recently since the night she taught him how to deliberately find lost objects, but she was relatively confident that the man wouldn't complain, not when she's basically telling him to take her money while she poured shots of Glenlivet down her throat. Tonight, though, she is bright-eyed and alert, encouraged and inspired by some degree of newfound inspiration. And so she arrives, emerging from the darkness of the very late evening, to deposit herself on her usual corner of the bar and set aside her satchel. The keys to her Jeep are tucked into its front pockets.

Easton, whenever they lock gazes, gets a wiggle of her fingers. "Hey, E, how's it going?" she asks.

After the weathering a dual plague of flu infection and murder rage, there is a little bounce in Easton's step now that he's back at the bar. There is plenty to do with stock and staffing and paperwork that might have made Easton roll his eyes once, but now he revels in it like it were the most interesting thing in the world. He bustles around the bar, whistling and cheerfully greeting customers and staff alike with his usual booming voice echoing through the place.

Even as the end of the shift draws to the close when others are winding down or at least anxious to get out of there, but not Easton. He seems perfectly content to talk with customers and pour drinks, so while at least one of the waitresses may groan audibly when a customer comes in this close to closing time, not Easton. He catches sight of Isabella coming in but can't quite pull away from a conversation for a few moments, until after she sat down.

"Hot Scotch!" As soon as he turns, he calls out a greeting from down the bar and is already grabbing the Glenlivet from it's shelf along with a glass.

"I'm good." His reponse is a little more measured, still positive but not quite the full exuberance of the other night when he was threatening to kiss all the customers. He's still smiling though, just not quite the face splitting grin of the other night. "How are you?"

She takes this opportunity to observe the way he bustles around the bar, with the bounce in his step and the open way he engages his customers. The levity in her expression doesn't fade through all of it, but it is tempered by something else - it looks suspiciously like tentative, hopeful relief.

His unique nickname for her earns him a blazing grin - a mutual acquaintance might have protests, but Isabella loves it and that is mirrored in her expression when Easton wanders over with a bottle of scotch and a tumbler. At the moment, her good humor appears to be insurmountable; an arm braces against the counter to cradle her face in the open cup of a palm as she waits.

Once he's poured her a glass and set it in front of her, she picks it up, though she doesn't drink it yet. "Just wanted to check on you now that our quarantine is over and we can actually talk face to face now instead of..." She gestures vaguely to one side, as if the wiggling of her fingers would be able to explain everything. "Anyway, I'm good - slowly working my way through the first draft of my thesis, took a break and ran away with Alexander to Seattle for a day, though..." A small laugh escapes her. "I think he nearly left me for a retro arcade machine. I was this close to coming back here with a broken heart and my feminine pride utterly destroyed after being outsexied by Daytona USA '98." She lifts a set of fingers, to pinch the air in between her thumb and index to indicate just how close it had been.

"What about you, Marine?" She searches his face and the slightly muted smile. "Still in the trenches?"

It's late enough now that Easton doesn't mind pouring himself a glass of the whiskey as well. He is usually good about sticking to beer during working hours but it's basically closing time and besides, he still feels like celebrating. He also doesn't drink yet though, waiting instead to hear about her adventures. He looks at first confused about the arcade cabinet, but then sucks in a breath around his teeth out of the corner of his mouth. "That is a pretty great game. I'm pretty sure Bennie would win out but ... I can see his dilemma." Easton grins broadly, knowing full well that it's not terribly complimentary to Isabella (or Bennie) to talk of an arcade machine winning out, but it is certainly fun.

"I am ... getting back into the land of the living." In many ways.

The comment about the trenches gets a half shrug and the pushing out of his lips slightly. "That's... going. About as good I could hope for." He's cautiously optimistic that he and Bennie are on the right path after their talk the other night. And the handcuffs. But he doesn't want to push things or assume or do something stupid to break it into a million little pieces.

"But I'm glad you and Alexander got away, even for a day. Hopefully Bennie and I can manage that soon. I think it's good to get out of here for a bit. Worked wonders for Geoff and I." He laughs and finally takes a drink after that.

"Ugh," Isabella groans comically when Easton takes Alexander's side on the matter, because it figures. "Wonder if it's too late to bat for the other team." There's a wink, though, indicative enough that the comment is decidedly not a serious one.

This is when she picks up her scotch; a toss of a wink, before the crystal lip of her tumbler finds the cushion of her own, a pull of liquid gold taken and letting it wind through her system, hitting her stomach and warming it.

"I'm happy to hear about your resurrection. Kind of feels like Lazarus seeing the light of day after three days of darkness in the cave, huh? Forgive the Biblical reference, but for a while there, things felt relatively apocalyptic." Her mien twists faintly, there, her grimace cracking through her overall cheerful veneer, though thankfully, that fades gradually - its own memory, in the end.

All in all, the line of her mouth softens. "I'm glad to hear that, too," she says, quietly, lifting her tumbler, for them to clink glasses should he choose. "That it's going." It's a hell of a lot better than stopping.

"I floored the gas pedal on our way out." The statement is a dry and acerbic thing. "Was afraid that a meteor might come out from nowhere and crash into the highway or something as equally ridiculous to prevent us from leaving. Thankfully that didn't happen, but I sure was clenched up for it." Even she knows how unlikely (?) that is because her smile returns in the throes of his laugh, brows lifted. "Yeah?" She sets her glass down and folds her arms on the counter. "Where would you take her, if the two of you went? Also if I remember correctly, you ended up marrying Geoff while you were out. Friendly warning from a friend, I mean..." Her grin flares through parted lips, mercilessly white and cutting through the half-dark of his bar like a blade. "...I don't think polygamy's legal in the fine State of Washington."

A quiet smile twists his lips up as she wishes she could swear off men, "Yea, sometimes I think that's gotta be easier, right?" But then shrugs and says, "But somethings can't be helped."

"Seriously. Between the plague and that darkness. It was rugged." Not that everything has necessarily snapped back to normal, there are still some deep lasting wounds from the Gohl incident, but at least he can start to work at repairing some of those things now.

He gladly clinks glasses and mutters a brief "slainte" before drinking down a big gulp of his own drink. "I don't blame you. And really who's to say what is ridiculous or not? I mean shit. I would never have believed any of this is possible and yet? Here we are."

Where would you take her

The urge to answer Far, Far Away rises but he pushes it back down. There are a myriad of reasons why that can't be the answer but he still would love to do just that. "The Outer Banks? Maybe Hawaii?" Those are two specific places versus 'some place warm' or 'an island', but he doesn't explain why specifically those places. He instead laughs and says, "I don't get married on every road trip or vacation I take I'll have you know. I've taken at least ... three without tying the knot." He laughs at the idea that vacation brings out the marriage!urge in him. "Though honestly my union with Geoff is just in our hearts and the King's eyes. We aren't legally hitched."

"For a while there, it was. Moved around too much." Isabella takes another swallow of her scotch. "Was already picky on top of it, the traveling just made that worse. I don't think I would've traded it for anything, though." A decade and change out, it was a relatively lonely existence, but it was blunted by the fact that she was simply too busy to contemplate it for very long, and her fascination for the things she did see, and the people she did meet, tended to make her forget it.

She doesn't know what it is about Easton; it must be his outward affability, no matter how aware she is that he is different within the mental bridge, as much as he tried to sanitize it for her sake and his, but it had always been easy to talk to him. Or it could be a combination encouraged by the man himself and the fact that she's always drinking when she's around him, guaranteed to lubricate the things she wouldn't normally say out of her. Then again, bartenders are what they are, aren't they? Civilian confessors, not affiliated with any church or denomination, but just as able to draw the sins out of their patrons.

"That plague's killed a lot of people over the centuries. Thousands." She gestures vaguely to the side. "I found something on the other side that suggested the very fact, I suspect that it-- " Her voice trails off, watching him across the counter for a moment, and she simply bursts out laughing, expression reflecting no small measure of self-exasperation as she pushes her glass towards him. "Here, make me stop. Please."

His offered list of places gets an approving grin, instead. "All good locations," she says, though she doesn't pry as to the reasons why he would pick them. "Legal, schmegal, that's where it counts, though. What's in there, not some piece of paper." She points towards his chest, a finger uncurled from her tumbler. "If you and Geoff said I do, then the universe - and Fat Elvis - wills it so." Her mischief is evident. "Is it weird that I'm a little jealous? I mean, to have that kind of lasting bromance with someone."

Easton listens without judgement about her adventures and he says, "Yea well I've never been good at swearing off anything." He raises his glass with a raise of his eyebrows and takes a small sip as if proving his own point.

Yes, being easy to talk to is high on the list of desirable skills for a bartender and it's something that Easton has in spades. He's chatty and affable and loud enough to be heard in just about any room. He's also aware that she knows something more about him than other people. And while that might cause others to drawback, somehow it makes Easton feel even more at ease with her. He doesn't force any extra smiles or bust out something ridiculous to change the subject, at least not as much as he might otherwise.

When she starts talking about the actual plague, he tilts his head to the side, curious where she's going with this. Then she trails off and he fills in "Wait? As in we had the actual plague? Or the black death came from the veil and not the fleas on rats?" He then looks at the glass again with curiosity, "So when you get overly drunk you ... talk about the middle ages? That's... hilarious. I usually just get naked and even more inappropriate." He shrugs, sometimes the truth can be plenty ridiculous and distracting.

He laughs about his relationship with Geoff not being defined by a piece of paper. "Damn straight." But he's not weirded out by her confession of jealousy, "I think in some ways that's what we are all lookin' for. Someone to be on your side." And while things with Bennie might be precarious and uncertain, it definitely helps to have a rock of a relationship.

"Me neither, so here's to the both of us suckers. It's not like all of this was voluntary, I didn't ask to be this way!" Like a performer on stage, Isabella's exaggerated dramatics has her placing her hand over her heart, tilting her head back in a woe is me fashion, liable to pluck a skull out of thin air and start a soliloquy.

His curiosity has her groaning, tilting her face forward and dropping her forehead on the counter. "I just wanted to drink. Let me drink," she tells him ruefully, but there's mirth on her, vibrant eyes gleaming like the devil's own as she looks up at him, pleased as punch when he refills her glass. "Yeah, that's pretty much it. What we suffered in those last few trying weeks wasn't normal. It came over, started messing with people's minds and abilities while in the throes of the fever, and considering all of that happened well before we put Gohl on the ground..." She groans and rubs her fingertips over her eyes. "I came across a list of the dead while I was on the other side during a...visit, of people who died because of this thing - some of the names I found? Died during the time of the Spanish Influenza in 1918. And I don't think it was just due to the flu. Stands to reason that if you cross over with your powers on the fritz, the chances of dying when a Dream takes you skyrockets. There. That's it. This is your fault, you opened the door. You opened the door, Easton. J'accuse!"

She points at him emphatically at that, though she quirks a grin at him right after, blunted faintly by what she has just said and the implications of a supernatural malady on a populace teeming with Glimmer abilities.

"And between the two of us, I'd take the nakedness and inappropriateness any day and not my constant ramblings about...right. The middle ages. See, this is why I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. Could you imagine how scintillating that sort of conversation actually is? Like...leaning over like this..." And she makes her best alcoholic's impression, leaning over across the table, one eye squinted shut. "And slurring about...I don't know. How Caesar and Pompey used to be like you and Geoff. A bromance of such epic proportions that Caesar was willing to break the bro code and married his favorite daughter to Pompey, and how when she died and Caesar's popularity was getting more widespread than Pompey's, that bromance sank into war and...who finds that interesting? I'm a menace."

She raises her glass again. "So here's to you and Geoff. May your bromance be eternal." There's a pause, and a hint of a smile. "Though if that can be applied to you and Bennie, that won't be so bad, too."

"No!" Easton responds to her request to be left to her alcohol. "You don't get to bring up possible veil plague connections and then be all mysterious, shhh, I don't want to talk about it. Bullshit. Of course you want to talk about it, you brought it up." He playfully chastises her for being a dramatic tease about the possible connection between those things. But then she's actually explaining why she thinks that and he raises his eyebrows and just gives a soft "oh shit" at the retelling.

You opened the door, Easton

His face falls. His tone is dead serious when he asks, "Why the fuck would you say that?" The phrase sticks in his head like a future accusation of a mistake he's yet to make. "Did something say that? Over there?" Well, now he just sounds a little crazy. And paranoid. But well that's not that far from the truth when he has people showing up to give him trinkets from dear old Uncle Monty who is a living rotting corpse on the other side.

But thankfully she's changes the subject back to their drinking and the results. He can't argue that getting loud and naked does sound like more fun than a impromptu history lesson. "It is interesting." Easton will admit that much, "But probably less so to drunken people who just want to smash." And when she toasts to him and Geoff he calls out "Damn straight!" and his grin only broadens when she mentions him and Bennie, "Agreed!" It's easy to imagine him commanding a group of men under fire considering just how loud he is when doing something as simple as a toast.

Called to the task, Isabella laughs - it's open and bright and she grins at him with that unabashed and unfettered way in which she normally lives her life; all in, or nothing at all. She even makes a big show of pawing at the bottle, whimpering whyyyyyyyyyy in the event that he holds it away from her, kept hostage until she explains.

But she does.

Why would you say that?

The sudden remark has her blinking once at him, dark brows furrowing. "It's...just an expression," she tells him, simply. "You know, kind of like...how you ask something and it ends up like a trigger and all the shit piled up behind it just comes cascading out?" She's drinking, she normally doesn't use any profanities, but the scotch lubricates that, too. Though at the man's strange look, her own devolves into something more serious. Those green, gold-flecked eyes fall on his, concern overtaking her mirth and the levity of the moment. Something is twigging her to ask, and don't look at her like that, she's isn't just psychic, she's perceptive and intuitive and even as she sits across from him, she burns and feels like a star within a hair's breadth of exploding, and taking an entire galaxy with it.

"...what happened, E?"

The furrowing of his brow lessens slightly but he still can't help but stare at her with an intensity that she's only glimpsed internally. He lifts his hands a bit as she explains what the idiom means as if that were the point of his question, even if it is literally what he asked. He shakes his head and says, "I had a visitor earlier. One of my uncle's colleague's from over there." He lets that settle in for a moment before continuing, "A doctor now, she apparently interned for my uncle and swiped a key from him before he died. She came to drop that off." His eyes move towards the office, as if thinking about the object draws his stare. He's well aware thanks to his abilities that the key is still sitting locked up tight in the desk, but he does check every now and then that it hasn't moved or disappeared or something.

"I don't know what it opens, but I can't help feel like it's not going to be good. Sorry, I realize that sounds a little dumb to get spooked by you asking why I opened the door ... I've just been ruminating on that a bit more than I should."

With some effort the worry lines ease and Easton puts back on a big grin. Once he finishes off his glass and pours them another round that smile almost looks genuine.

"Uncle Monty?" His intensity is reflected by her own - not just because Isabella knows how he felt whenever he remembered the man while she shared a mental bridge with Easton, but also because of what Alexander has told her about the man's childhood with the doctor and her remembered fury has her gripping the glass tightly. She takes a swallow, but her anger is palpable - she knows they're special. Gray Harbor's children are all uniquely equipped to not just survive, but combat the homegrown horrors here, but to subject those to someone so young?

There's something familiar about what Easton mentions also - a doctor who used to work for the asylum, a colleague... "....Doctor Hailey Stevenson?" she identifies with a start. Because who else could it be? She's only heard of the one. "Alexander's doctor the last time he was in the hospital, after Gohl..." Her grimace is intense and she fixes her eyes on her glass, feeling her fingers shake - it's only how she grips it that she manages to stay them. "...cut his throat. He told me that she used to work there." Glancing at the doors leading to the bar, she leans forward in the counter and lowers her voice. "He's going to keep contact to keep an eye on her, he said. I don't think he trusts her but I think he's willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, also."

Her eyes follow his own towards the office. "Yeah, agreed," she tells him quietly. "It's probably not good, plus nothing we've brought back from the other side amounted to anything great." Exhibit A: William Gohl's bones. Exhibit B: The Veil-Flu. "But I mean...do you guys still intend on finding it? The Asylum? I know Alexander is, because he's concerned about Miss Whitehouse. You think it might open a Door that might lead to the actual Asylum?"

Nodding at the identification of his uncle, Easton realizes he didn't specfy, nor really need to it seems. He picks up his glass and tilts his head as she's able to then guess the name of the Doctor. Oh, right. Alexander met her at the hospital. All of that happened during the blur of time so it didn't even hit him when talking to her that Alexander mentioned her. He swallows a gulp right about the line of throats getting cut. "Yeah, yikes." His face darkens a touch when she mentions keeping an eye on her and if she's trustworthy. He shakes his head, "I don't trust her at all. She's shady, lying and hiding shit. Plus I'm half convinced this key is just some bait to get me to walk into something dumb on her behalf. She insists she doesn't know what it opens, I say bullshit. Who steals a key if they don't know what it opens?"

The Asylum?

"I doubt it. I still want to find it, and Dr. Glass is going to help too. Vivian." He shakes his head a bit realizing he can call her by her first name when he's not acting as a patient. "But I doubt the key opens that. Hailee worked there, so she had to have access of her own." Granted she could have just been lying to set him up for something. Argh.

There's a long pause from Isabella as she listens to Easton's misgivings and his own distrust of Hailey Stevenson. Her fingers absently swirl her glass of scotch around, a slight tapping of her index finger against the crystalline surface. She says little else, but she has hung around and spoken enough with Easton that he would recognize the look immediately - what Alexander fondly terms her thinky face in the rare moments when he's had too much to drink, or is delirious from the throes of a high fever.

"When Alexander and I were talking about her, he asked whether I would forgive her," she says slowly. "In spite of her potential history of perhaps feeding people like us to the Shadows." There is open conflict on her face - something that touches deeper than whatever principles she might hold regarding that. Something more painful and personal. "I told him that it depends on what she's done or tried to do since then. For all we know she could have resigned for a reason, and we don't really know her circumstances. I mean, what do we really know about Hailey Stevenson?"

After a moment, she looks up to meet Easton's eyes. "I hate to even suggest it..." She says this a lot; one of her greatest failings is always this tendency to be incapable of curbing her curiosity or this need to explore a problem thoroughly. "...but if you have reservations and can't help but fixate on it anyways, maybe have the Key examined. By someone you trust. A capable reader."

She glances to the side. "I don't want to suggest Alexander," she confesses. "I don't want him anywhere near Them. But other than Byron and Hyacinth, I don't know who else who is as experienced and who you can trust. Just promise me that if you guys - you, Vivian and the rest...if you go ahead with this that you'll look out for one another. I've lost too many to this town already." Her mother.

Her brother.

Letting her think this out, Easton doesn't feel the need to fill any space with talking. It's not an easy problem to figure out what to do with things like these. Any bravado that he might have shown when he first came into town and started dealing with all this was snuffed out by Gohl, the murders, the attacks and the ramifications. Now he's much more prone to caution, and maybe just a touch of suspicion too. He just sips his scotch and lets her think about it.

What do we really know about Hailey Stevenson?

"Fuck all. She got a grant through the Marshall Foundation to go to med school and that's how she met my uncle. How on earth she ended up working at the asylum I don't know. Maybe she thought it was to help those people? Maybe she didn't give a shit." He doesn't bother pretending like he's not leaning towards the latter.

A capable reader

Easton looks at her blankly. "A what now?" He at least recognizes the list of names and what they have in common. "They're head people. What do you mean 'reader' though? I thought it was head people, body people and object people." Yes they can all tell each others strengths, but the right words are often difficult to come by. Though in his head he's already thinking of another 'head guy' as he calls it.

"Maybe," Isabella murmurs thoughtfully, quietly, eyes and expression brimming with the things she can't say. "But people change, E. And distressingly, they make mistakes." There's a smile, a rueful and melancholy one. "Sometimes terrible ones." He might get the impression that she isn't speaking only about Hailey anymore.

With another pause, she drains her tumbler and nudges it towards him for a refill. "Readers are what a few of us call the Talented who specialize in minds...my brother was capable of all three aspects we know of so far, but that in particular he excelled in the most. From my experience, they largely deal with electricity and emotions but sometimes they also encompass other things. Illusions, for instance. Languages, too." Her eyes lift to Easton's. "And memories. Sometimes when the emotional imprint is strong enough, a skilled reader can even sometimes access the thoughts behind those impressions. If the Key really did belong to your Uncle Monty, he might've left something upon it strong enough to be read. But you would need someone like Alexander to do it."

After a moment, she continues. "If you intend to ask him, would it be okay if I was there? Depending on the strength on what's behind it could be a lot. And I wasn't there for him, already, when he needed me the most. I'd rather not have a repeat, if I can help it."

"Yea well maybe I would have liked her to proclaim her time there as a mistake just a touch louder." is Easton's reply in a crotchety growl. But he does at least offer a small shrug that it's possible she's right about this and about Hailey.

Easton's eyes widen slightly when Isabella explains some of the connections that he's started to see but didn't really have any firm confirmation on. Alexander showed him the electricity, and he saw Minerva use it effectively. The rest is mostly new to him in terms of what it means to be a 'reader'.

"Interesting. Okay, so maybe I'm not so pissed she dropped it off with me. If it can be useful, then I'm all for it. And if you'd rather I keep this thing away from Alexander, I'm good with that for now. I've talked with healers about spreading the risk, it's a sound strategy. We should do the same here. I think I know someone I can ask to help."

Ruiz wouldn't turn him down on this and at least as far as Easton can tell, this should be up his alley.

The growl has her blinking at Easton, watching him for a moment. "What happened exactly?" Isabella can't help but ask now - the affable bartender actually looks angry about his encounter with her. "Not that I could blame you, I remember what you felt when you introduced your uncle to me on the bridge...did she set you off in another way?"

She's unable to keep the relief off her face when Easton indicates that he could go to someone else he could trust. "Okay," she says. "I agree about spreading the risk. Who were you thinking of going to, if I may ask?" It's a sound idea and she's all for it. "One person can't carry it all, and if Margaret Addington was right with what she said in the funeral, it's more imperative now to share the load so nobody gets chewed up by everything else that happens here."

Easton sighs and says, "No, she just came in all chipper about how great my uncle was and just didn't seem all that fucking contrite about having worked there." Yes, the first part might be more telling as to why his response is so viscerally negative to the girl, even if he doesn't necessarily want to admit that. "My family and I aren't close." He knows that is very different from her, he's heard her talk of her brother and knows a little of how close they were and how much he meant. He assumes that's at least somewhat true of other family members for her.

Easton just nods at the relief. He gets it. He's relieved when Bennie doesn't have to be the one to heal people. "I'm going to ask the Captain. If he can't, I'll go to Thorne." He shakes his head about Margaret with a rueful smile, "Yea, feel like she could be actually helpful if she gave two shits about us not dying or being eaten. As it is she's just as likely to give shit advice to watch us suffer."

What she hears from Easton pulls a faint frown from Isabella, before taking a swallow of her refill of scotch. With that description, he'd be able to discern just by looking at her that she completely understands why his reaction was so vehement, considering what little Alexander had told her about Easton's relationship with his uncle, and what she felt from the man himself. "You didn't seem to like him much from what I experienced inside of your head," she remarks tentatively. "And that wasn't even - we sanitized one another's internal spaces before we even built a bridge between our minds. If that much had managed to creep through, I can't even imagine what's actually in there regarding your Uncle Monty." She gestures vaguely to the center of his chest.

"I don't intend to pry, though, unless you want to talk about it."

His choice on the Captain has her pausing, chewing on her bottom lip. "The Captain's been through a lot lately, too. He can take more than most, but the two of you're both fighting men - you definitely know of that better than I do." There's a faint smile. "Daddy was a captain in the Navy, lost a limb too, in service - he had his own command, the USS Indomitable off Kitsap." The nearest Naval base, just along the coast from Gray Harbor. "No greater bond forged than those in battle, and all of that. I get it. Just...the two of you be careful, okay?" There's a glance at his office. "There could be a nuclear holocaust in the horizon and I'm pretty sure that once we're all dead and gone, the Captain will still be there along with five cockroaches. I'm pretty sure he can weather anything, except maybe himself."

Easton shakes his head ruefully and laughs, "No. I didn't like him much." When she explains about the mental connection and the bridge he shakes his head and says, "That's all still really new to me. I think I can only do a little bit of the head stuff." Unless you want to talk about it He looks at her as if considering the offer and then down at his scotch and gives a half shrug, "Not much to say. I come from a long line of douches and he was just another Marshall carrying on that fine tradition."

"I understand." That the captain has been through a lot lately. "But, I trust him. And I know he'll tell me to fuck off if it's too much. I worry a little about how much people here will give if you ask." He knows all about asking men to make sacrifices for the cause, he just thought that chapter of his life was over. But here are a group of people that mostly seem infinitely willing to throw themselves into danger for each other or complete strangers. It's comforting in some ways, terrifying in others.

He nods in appreciation at the story of her father, smiling as she talks with such honor and respect for the man. It's a stark contrast to his line about the 'long line of douches' in his family. "I agree, he'll out live us all or die trying." He finishes up his glass and says, "Now then, finish that up while I clean up and I can make sure you make it home safely. Alexander might be free of Gohl, but he'll still kill me if I over serve you and something happens to you."

Green-gold eyes watch Easton's darker own cast down to his glass, and Isabella flashes him a smile. "Later, or never. Either way, I'm still going to come every day just before closing, unless I'm out of town." It's a good pattern to have - Easton is observant, and he knows Alexander and about half the people she associates with on a regular basis and this way, she's able to keep tabs on him also, though she's not about to admit that out loud. "Besides, you're my bartender, now. You're practically my priest. My..." And then she laughs. "...my very inappropriate, decidedly un-celibate priest. How is my tormented, exhausted soul going to cleanse itself without my nightly confessions?" She winks at him at that, and downs her scotch.

"It's only a matter of time before we start trading stories, I think. But you're right, for now...I need to keep myself from burning all the brain cells I need." She searches his face for a moment and then grins more openly. "I'm glad you're trucking on, E, and that things are going with Bennie. I'll keep rooting for the both of you. Love's an amazing thing, no matter how stupid or insane or nonsensical it is. Keep me posted, yeah? I'll do the same."