2019-11-11 - Like Father Like Daughter

Finch arrived at Espresso Yourself about 30 minutes early. Ruiz had asked to meet at 10, but she knew she'd need at least one cup of coffee and some sugar in her system before talking to him, and that sure wasn't going to happen at home. Ignacio is in New York for some family matters and picking up some more of his stuff to move back to Gray Harbor. She and Gran don't really cook, and they can no longer afford the housekeeper and cook they employed for decades. She's settled into one of the smaller tables by the front of the shop.

Something has definitely changed with the petite woman. Her hair is no longer a bright, unnatural color. Gone is the pink, the blue, and the green that she rotated through regularly. Instead her hair is dyed back to her natural dark brown, matching her eyes. She's in Ignacio's hoodie over a Cornell sweatshirt and jeans that have all sorts of funky patterns drawn on them in fabric pen. Combat boots are on her feet, and a messenger bag is at her feet.

She has her laptop out and is working on inputting some of her recent research into the cooperative parenting habits of the Western Bluebird. It was supposed to be her thesis and she's still working on it, just in case she might be able to get back to school someday. She's on her second large white chocolate mocha already, and a few crumbs remain of the muffin she demolished.

Showing up early is for keeners and cheaters, and the captain is apparently neither of these things. He shoulders his way inside at about 10:03, and his gaze goes right to the tables clustered along the window and wall, hunting for a familiar face and pink hair as he ambles up to the counter. Not spotting her immediately, his attention's turned to the barista waiting for his order, which he murmurs while digging for his wallet. The cop is in his usual low-key attire: grungy tee shirt, dark fitted jeans, combat boots, baseball cap. He's grudgingly thrown a jacket on, too, and it looks about as well-worn as everything else he's sporting.

Finch waits for him to turn enough to catch his eye with a faint hand signal, and she works on saving her document and shutting the laptop down. Her stomach is in knots, doing flips like an Olympic gymnast, but she's trying to look calm outwardly. She manages to do so, focusing on packing away the computer into her messenger bag and taking another sip of her drink.

The girl is spotted with that lift of fingers, and he does a little double-take that distracts him from the fact that he's in the middle of ordering his coffee. The barista has to raise her voice a little to get his attention, and he shakes his head at something and digs his credit card out of his wallet. Once he's paid, he shifts to the side to wait for his drink. His fingers are rifled through his hair somewhat awkwardly as he considers the spare seat at Finch's table. Then with a breath, he prowls on over. "Hey. Thanks for meeting me. Mind if I sit?"

Finch gestures to one of the empty seats. "Go ahead. I have to admit I was surprised to hear from you." She's clearly decided going into this that simple truths are the best way to go. She's bad at doing the whole etiquette dance thing. Ironically if her mother hadn't tried to kill her, she'd likely be a proper lady like her grandmother. Instead, well, Ruiz gets this.

She turns her paper coffee cup in circles with one hand, glancing up at him from time to time. "Ignacio is out of town," she reveals, as if feeling the need to explain why her personal cheerleader and Spanish peacock is not present.

God only knows what he'd do with a proper lady. The man doesn't have a proper bone in his body, and the manners would just be one more thing to wrap his head around. "All right," he offers, a little gruffly, when Ignacio's whereabouts are offered up. Then the chair is bumped out with the toe of his boot, and he sinks into it inelegantly. Right as his order comes up. He grunts some sort of apology, and climbs to his feet again, moving off to fetch the drink and snap a lid on.

It's not often one sees a high ranking police officer this disconcerted. Finch at least takes that to heart that she's not the only one unsure of herself in this encounter. She sips her coffee again before setting it aside, watching the man get up and get his order.

There are definite physical similarities. She clearly wasn't ever going to be tall between her mother and Ruiz. The dark hair and their eyes are also strikingly similar. Even their chins aren't that far off, when they both have their mouths set in that grimace that is clearly inherited. She brushes her hand through her hair idly, not realizing it's in a mimic of what he did earlier.

At just a hair under six feet, he isn't short, but there are definitely taller men. With his coffee in hand, he returns to Finch's table and settles back in with a soft creak of the chair. His cap's tugged off, proving he has at least a semblance of manners, and tossed atop the table. His eyes fix steadily on those of the girl seated across from him, before slipping away to peruse the rest of her features slowly. He picks out little things here and there: the shape of her chin, the set of her mouth. He tries to smile, but it comes out a bit wolfish.

"So, uh." He sniffs sharply. Allergies, maybe. "Look. I'm not very good at.." Talking? His eyes flick to the window, like he'll find the words there.

"That makes two of us," Finch says, shifting awkwardly under his scrutiny, as if she didn't just do the same thing to him. "I really don't even know how to do this whole thing." She grimaces, looking at the ball cap a long moment on the table. "I guess we could start with just asking each other some questions? Anything you don't wanna answer you can just pass on. Sound good?"

It's a ratty old thing, threadbare and well-worn like most of the clothing he favours when off the clock. It has the LA Dodgers' logo scrawled across the front. "Si," he agrees in a low murmur, eyes still lingering on the girl opposite him at the table. Then he downs a sip of his coffee, and gestures to her with a large, weathered hand that's inked right up to the backs of his first knuckles. Far more than one would expect on a cop. "You want to go first?"

Finch studies the visible ink for a long moment. Despite her seeming penchant for colorful hair, she's otherwise unmarked. Pierced ears, but just the requisite single hole in each. No visible tattoos. Her skin has that lingering tan from working outdoors all summer and much of the year. She clearly doesn't hide inside for long hours. Some of it might be his heritage though.

"Where were you born, where'd you grow up?" she asks, curiously. This other side of her heritage she has no understanding of. She's only beginning to learn Spanish because of Ignacio. She took Latin in high school because it's relevant to ornithology and taxonomy.

There's not too much of it visible, what with his jacket on. The edges of those choppy waves detailed along his forearm, and an assortment of other things mark the back of his hand: a fish, some letters, what looks like a phoenix; the quality of that one is poorer than much of his other ink.

He settles back in his chair, and his hand returns to his to-go cup that clearly to-went nowhere. "Veracruz." It's pronounced with a soft 'v', closer to 'beracruz'. He waits a beat, then answers the second question, "I grew up in Tijuana. And then East LA." Might explain the ball cap. He flickers a smile. "Your turn."

Finch takes in the curt answers. Veracruz. Tijuana, Los Angeles. "I've never been there, Mexico that is. Costa Rica once on a birding trip with the Ornithology students at Cornell." She gives a small smile at that, a good memory perhaps.

"I was born here, at Addington Memorial. Which I guess was pretty surprising. My mother didn't want kids. Ever. My grandmother told me recently that she threatened to cut Wren off from the family money if she'd aborted or abandoned me. I guess that's how I ended up existing. Things were pretty good growing up. I spent most of my time with my Gran."

"Mm." That's the sum total of his response, to her never having been to Mexico. "Too many drugs. Too many gangs. You're not missing anything." He sips his coffee, and tips an eyebrow slightly when she mentions she was born here. Right here, in this town. That, he didn't anticipate. "Your Gran.. is she still alive?"

Finch nods. "Yep. And still going strong. Dove Celaeno. She was more my mother than Wren really. And after Wren, well, I told you that part. She became my legal guardian at 13. Mom never married, never had other kids or anything."

She sips her coffee and folds her hands on the table. "What about you? Wife? Kids? Other than me?" she asks. Does she have other family out there?

Dove Celaeno. That's a name that's going into his mental rolodex, to be revisited later no doubt. "That doesn't surprise me," he murmurs, in regards to her mother. Dim recollection, maybe, of that time in his life. So much drinking, so much partying. Kids would have cramped their style.

"Si," he replies after a pause, and a slight clearing of his throat. "I.. was married. A couple of years after your mother and I.." Had their one night stand. "I had a son." Past tense. He takes a long drink of his coffee.

Finch blinks a few times. She had a half-brother. Wait. Had? Was? Past tense? She swallows. "What happened to them?" she asks worriedly. Maybe the curse extended further than they thought? Her eyes are wide with concern.

His eyes seek, then slide away from Finch's when she asks her question. The grief is old, but still holds residence in him, plainly; it's a while before he answers, "They were killed. Never found the murderer." Suddenly, it's probably crystal clear what set him on the path to becoming a cop. He draws a breath, and rolls some tension out of his shoulders. "What do you, uh, do?" He means for work, probably.

A sibling so close, and yet so far out of her grasp. Finch looks wounded for a moment. Not at him, but at the universe taking even that small thing from her. "I'm so sorry. No one should have to go through that, no one." She reaches for her coffee cup and just taps a finger against a side of it.

"Right now? I work for August Roen at Out on a Limb. The tree-service. I'm good at climbing trees because I was a grad student at Cornell in the Ornithology department. I study birds. It's a family thing. I have a Biology degree and I'm just a couple semesters off of my Masters. But paying for my mother and Great Aunt up at WSH has drained the family finances, so now I'm saving money to go back when I can."

He's silent as condolences are offered and continues watching his own coffee cup, eyes distant. Mind, who the fuck knows where.

The answer to his question, though, is a welcome distraction from wherever his thoughts had gone. His brows furrow when Roen's mentioned, though.. obviously. That makes sense. He'd encountered them out on the road, that day the aspen fell across the highway. "I'm curious why the.. birds?" He settles on that, with a hint of something like a smile at the corners of his mouth.

"Another Celaeno family tradition. We've had at least one a generation going back forever. Ornithologists that is. And we all got stuck with the names. Hell I have a cousin named Pigeon somewhere back in the family tree." Finch chuckles a little and shakes her head.

"I wasn't going to buy into the bird studies thing, but then I saw Jurassic Park, and the idea that maybe, just maybe, some of these birds are the descendants of dinosaurs? Well, that got my interest. Silly I know, but they are absolutely fascinating. Their biological engineering alone is something amazing. Hollow bones. Hollow. Bones." She could clearly talk about this stuff forever, but she catches herself, blushes faintly and clears her throat. "So yeah. Birds"

She runs a hand through her hair and glances out the window a moment, resetting her brain to come up with a question for Ruiz. "You were in the military?" she asks, curiously.

Oddly, he doesn't seem to mind the sudden flare of interest when they get on the subject of birds. The light in her eyes, the relish with which she speaks of dinosaurs and biological engineering and for a moment, it's almost like having a normal conversation with his kid. Until reality intrudes again, and reminds him that he doesn't know her. And she doesn't know him. And probably wouldn't want a damned thing to do with him, if she did.

"Si." To the military. After a pause to collect himself, and breathe. "Ten.. ten years. Marines." He lifts his coffee to his mouth, pauses, then sips. "I mustered out when I lost my family."

"Is that why you became a cop?" Finch asks in a quiet tone, her eyes squinted from sympathy she isn't sure she has a right to feel. "What made you come here, to Gray Harbor?" she asks, her dark eyes fixed on him now. Braver in having covered some of the tougher territory.

He may notice other little things about her. She doesn't wear a lot of jewelry, just some small earrings. She hasn't looked at her phone even once since they started talking so she's a generational aberration in that respect or her grandmother taught her some very good manners. And she has little ticks of movement here and there, that may remind him of his father. That thousand-yard stare she gets every once in a while is all him though.

A pause, and a slight furrow of his brows. He chances to meet her eyes, too, for a moment. His aren't actually brown or black as they may appear at first glance; they're a subtle, shifting hazel. Dark, mossy green, presently, whatever that signifies in terms of his mood. "Maybe. I fucked around for a few years before-" Shit. Swearing. He probably shouldn't be swearing in front of his kid. With an amused huff, he looks back to his coffee. "Lo siento."

"So what are your plans for Thanksgiving?" It's asked casually, but it's a good bet he's feeling anything but.

"Did you seriously just apologize for swearing in front of me?" Finch asks, looking suddenly amused and huffing out a little laugh. It's musical, like birdsong almost. "Ignacio has been teaching me some Spanish. Seriously, I'm 24. Not 4. And I probably swear enough to make your former Marine buddies blush. Don't hold back on my account," she insists. She seems to relax just a tiny bit in that moment, because it makes him more human.

"Not sure yet. Gran and I usually go to a restaurant these days. We used to have a housekeeper who cooked too, but we had to let her go when the WSH bills piled up in the last two years. She insists on taking care of her sister and daughter in there, despite what the two of them have done. Ignacio probably wants to cook a big family meal for his brother and his brother's boyfriend and me. Might do that."

She looks at him again, one brow arching. "You wanna come out to eat with Gran and I maybe? It might be nice? No pressure though. I know this all came out of left field, for you and I both." She holds up her hands in a gesture of placation. No. Pressure.

His lips twitch, and then he chuckles. And then actually laughs, warm and rough and smoky-sounding like water rushing over rocks. "I did. I did apologise." It's ridiculous, and he knows it. Traces of his amusement linger in the heavy crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, long after the sound of his laughter's faded, and he watches the girl closely as she speaks. "Sounds nice. You should go." With Ignacio, to cook for his family. A flicker of melancholy cuts through his dark eyes. "I don't want to-" He's suddenly awkward again. Tension stitched into his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure why I asked."

Finch's shoulders slump a little. She'd gotten that tiny spark of hope and jumped on it, and now she feels a little silly. "That's all right. When Gran and I decide what we're doing though? I'll let you know and you can show up if you want to? It may be Iggy cooking at our house for everyone. I can't cook much outside of Hot Pockets in the microwave." She gives him a grim smile at that. Well if she had a cook most of her life, that explains that.

For a man with considerable skill in reading, Javier can be remarkably clueless with people. He watches the girl for a long, long while after she's spoken, then sniffs sharply and checks his watch. "I should get going. I'll, uh. Yeah. We'll see." About Thanksgiving. Emotions are bullshit, so he shoves them down, and pushes to his feet. Should he hug her? He offers his hand instead. "Thank you. For coming to speak with me."

Finch stands when he does, also awkward. She's a little red around her ears with trying to figure out how to do this unfamiliar family dance, but the offered hand is taken. She wants to use it to pull him into a hug. Every atom of her being wants that hug more than anything, but she just shakes it. Her hands aren't soft, they're rough from working outdoors, wielding chainsaws and axes and the like.

"You're welcome. If you need anything or if you just want to talk again, let me know? And please be careful out there." The curse. It still hangs in the air over every facet of her life.

His hand clasps hers warmly, and holds on for a while. No tentative finger-shaking here. "I will," he promises. He nearly, nearly caves and tugs her in close, and wraps his arms around her. But he doesn't want to spook her, and in the end, simply releases her hand slowly. "Tú también." He snags his ball cap from the table and tugs it on, takes a step back. "Adios," he murmurs low, then turns to go.

"Adios," Finch replies. Then she sits back down to let him make his escape more easily, and buy herself some time to compose herself and finish her coffee.