2019-11-16 - Here We Are, Again

Some time had been agreed upon, but it's slipped the mind of the player, so let's just assume it was 7:30 in the evening on [today]. They could just meet somewhere, but Patrick's a gentleman, so it's fine, he'll pick her up at her place. Thus, at 7:33 PM, the doorbell rings. It's drizzling out (of course) so Patrick smartly lingers under the eaves of the front porch, leaning his folded umbrella up against the side of the house and none too subtly taking stock of the exterior of Anne's domicile.

He's dressed smartly enough, gray suit, no tie, collar loose. And he's got a got himself a tidy little bouquet to help pass the time: a half-dozen pink tulips tied with a pale pink ribbon.

It wasn't that Anne was waiting by the door, but she was a rather punctual person - so she was already downstairs and ready by 7:25, and unnecessarily irritated by 7:31. But the doorbell goes 'ding' and there's the sound of two Corgis excitedly barking as they rush down the hall, and two seconds after that? The door opens.

"Shush, Smeagol. Sit!" she instructs the dogs, who sit down on their fluffy bums and wag their butts furiously as they look up to see who has arrived. Surely, there will be treats. Stupid dogs. She's dressed for the weather - a cute navy blue dress with a thin black belt around the middle, elbow-length sleeves and a skirt above the knee; it pairs well with the stockings and black boots. Her hair is down, there's subtle gloss on her lips and little else. Her attention is briefly stolen at first by the tulips in his hands rather than the man himself, though she'll get there, a smile blossoming. She doesn't get the intention, but the player sure does. Two-lips? Cocktails? Subtle. "Hello, Patrick," it's a warm greeting. "I'd invite you in, but the dogs will attack you and as you can tell, they are extremely vicious."

It wasn't that Patrick was intentionally running late, but he might have spent an unnecessary and intentional span of time having a discussion with the florist about where a person gets tulips in November in Washington State. Which is why he's three minutes late. But look! The tulips are so pretty! "Oh, I'm absolutely quaking with fear," he agrees promptly, looking beyond Anne to - well. Ostensibly, he's looking at the dogs. But he's really more just peering at the inside of her house, as much as can be seen. "These are for you." He tilts the oft-mentioned bouquet of lovely pink tulips (IT'S NOT SUGGESTIVE AT ALL, STOP IT) Anne's way.

"I'll just wait out here while you put them in some formaldehyde?" Since he's been warned off of coming inside, so now the whole evening's a wash. (the jokes right themselves)

write themselves

"I can tell," Anne quirks a wider smile as his tulips are thrust towards her face, and she leans in expectantly to touch her nose to one of the blooms to sniff. Then she takes them, as if the sniff test was to make sure they were acceptable to hold. "Thank you, they're beautiful. And you look.." There's a trailing consideration as her attention drops down the line of his form, a quick nibble given to her bottom lip. There were many words to describe how Patrick looked in the moment. Anne chose the most diplomatic: "Very well put together."

Then she turns with a roll of her eyes, the dogs trailing at her heels as she walks down the hall. The door is left open. "It was just a joke. You can come in. Did you lose your humor in.. where were you again?" Make no mistake, Anne knew precisely where he was, but pretending not to know is all apart of this well organized plan of hers. She didn't live here the last time they connected, but the house is put together and entirely what one would expect from Anne. Everything has its place. One of the dogs doubles back to sniff expectantly at Patrick's shoe, while Anne goes to pull a vase down from one of the kitchen cabinets. "You didn't have to bring me flowers," but she likes that he did, so says the tone.

They're not poisoned tulips, she doesn't smell them and fall into some opium-esque slumber, nor does anything jump out and attack her (though, add that to the list of ideas for another time). They just smell like tulips, which Anne is welcome to discover while Patrick makes no effort to pretend he's not aware he's being checked out; by the time she comes up with a suitable ending for how he looks, she'll have to do it while he's raising his brows at her expectantly, yeeees? And then nodding acceptance of the end of the comment - or maybe it's to affirm that he LEFT his sense of humor wherever it was that he went.

Notably, he waits till he's certain the dogs are following Anne and thus no kind of threat before he crosses the threshold, leaving him to hold up the bottom of his foot at the curious dog. There's a very stern face at the dog, an expression that doesn't match the lightness of his tone to say, "There are very few things that I have to do." So he agrees(?) about the flowers. "You're welcome for them. Your house looks exactly like I assumed it would." While he walks around the front room, looking at all Anne's stuff.

The dog, who's dangling name tag identifies as 'Gollum', stays with Patrick in spite of his stern face. It follows at his heel, butt wigging furiously. The other one's gone fucked off and is now laying on one of the (extraordinarily nice) dog beds by the sofa. ".. Thank you?" her brows go up at the assumption, and she looks across at him whilst arranging the tulips in a vase. "I think. I'm going to take it as a compliment regardless," she fusses with the blooms before she fills the vase up with water from the tap, putting them in the windowsill. Then, with that task out of the way, she steps around and folds her arms over her chest, tipping her chin to look at him while he looks at her things.

"I moved here a couple years ago. I got tired of the apartment," she explains, even if he didn't ask her to. "Are you staying at the house?" where all the other Addingtons live, presumably, not the museum. "I imagine there's a lot of rooms vacant, what with Margaret disowning mostly everyone." A pause. "Or so I heard."

As a compliment: "That's how I would take it, too." Patrick doesn't full-on kick the dog, but it's obvious that he's not looking for dog hair all over his slacks, so just go over there, dog, though he stops scowling at the thing by the time Anne's done fussing with the flowers. Look at how well he's getting along with her pets! It's going to look a little odd with the two of them standing there, arms crossed separately, looking at each other, but that's how it plays out, since he wheels back around to accomplish it.

"With Margaret and Thomas? God no." He scoffs quietly at the very notion of it. "People in this town exaggerate," he points out needlessly as to what she heard. "It was only Erin and Hyacinth. Is there a garden back there?" He looks over the top of her head toward the back door, chin-tipping that way.

It doesn't work, whatever Patrick tries to do. The dog might be a little stupid, because he seems to think that Patrick's his new best friend, considering the second Patrick wheels around to do the arms-crossed-and-stare thing at Anne, the dog flops down and sticks his muzzle on Patrick's shoe. But look! It makes Anne's smile a little broader, a touch brighter, and maybe that's worth a little hair on the ankles. "I think he likes you," she remarks with just a hint of a laugh, like she thinks that whole thing is incredibly funny. Or absurd. Or both.

"Erin's the one that kept crashing her car?" she arches a brow at him before she shakes her head. "Hm. I can't say I understand it all, but.. Margaret always seems to know what's best. For her, at least. And the Addingtons." It's the polite thing to say. It sounds almost complimentary! His head tip distracts her, and she looks over her shoulder with a blink, the smile dimpling either cheek. "Yes, and a pergola! There were only two houses on Bayside that had pergolas in their backyard. The other one's further up the hill," with a much better view. "The people that lived there disappeared not so long ago." And on that depressing note, she turns on her heel and walks back into the kitchen. "We can drink out there. It's drizzling, but it didn't feel very cold yet." Yes, they were supposed to go out. Yes, she was supposed to pick the place. No, she's not going to bring attention to the fact that she decided they'd drink here instead. "I got Bailey's. And a couple of other things. Do you want to help me out?"

"I think he shouldn't rush to judgment," says Patrick of how much this dog has decided to like him. His foot wiggles, get off his shoe stupid mutt, but he suffers it stoically other than that. CONSIDERING HE COULD JUST MIND-CONTROL THIS FUCKING DOG. "Is she." Erin, he means, with the car. The amount he doesn't care should come across in the flippant way he passes the comment back to Anne, without even putting a questioning lilt on it.

Maybe it's just to get the dog to get off his foot, and maybe it's genuine curiosity, but she goes on about the backyard, so he drifts toward the door to peer through the glass panes and see what he can see on this drizzly evening. Which is why he winds up turning back and blinking at Anne a couple times when she talks about drinking out there, catching him wholly by surprise. "Of course," he comes up with smoothly enough. "Dare I hope that the 'other things' include bourbon, bitters, and maraschino cherries?" He will be sad if the answer is no, it's written all over the please-say-yes look that he attaches to Anne.

"He's not very bright," Anne says fondly of the dog, giving him one more glance before she just shakes her head and retreats into the kitchen. She's purposefully not looking at Patrick, so she doesn't see the surprise in his expression when she mentions staying here to drink. Yes, this was all going according to plan; she just needs to spend some time focusing on taking the alcohol out of its rightful place while the blush on her cheeks calms down. But then he has to ask questions, and she knows the look that comes with her tone, and damn him for making her look his way while the apples of her cheeks were still rosy. "We're supposed to be having Irish coffee," she reminds him, huffing just a little.

"But yes, Patrick, I got bourbon," she pulls down the bottle, because apparently she's an enabler. It's not top shelf, but beggars can't be choosers. "And bitters. And lucky you, I made ice cream sundaes last week so I have cherries, too," her nose crinkles as she dips into the fridge for the rest. "I was alluding to snacks though. I got snacks. So I hope you weren't expecting dinner."

Patrick reminds right back, "We're supposed to be going out." This is why they don't work! He storms out!

Actually, he wanders around in her kitchen while she's doing things, looking for, "Lemons, oranges, sugar cubes." He doesn't immediately see any of those things, so he stops to read the label on the bourbon, makes a noise behind his nose, and starts opening all the cupboards one after another. At least he's nice enough to close them as he goes, so it won't look like her kitchen got poltergeisted. She can take this comment however she wants: "I was looking forward to eating out, but." Beggars can't be choosers, as the meta previously noted. "Tell me about these snacks. And where are you hiding all your glasses?" Tumblers specifically, since he probably found, like, normal people cups already, made a face at them, and moved on.

It's a reminder that injects a bit of irritation, shoulders tensing as the smile slips from her lips. "You said it was up to me," she says matter-of-factly, rolling her shoulders back and scooting around the island as he comes in to start pawing through her cabinets. "So this is what I decided. But it's fine," it wasn't fine. "We can drive down to Two if By Sea, it's not very far. Though I don't see why you can't just eat in." He can take that comment however he wants. "It's not like the bars around here serve anything decent."

But through the rabble-rabble, she tucks around him, leaning to step up onto her tippy-toes to push open a specific cabinet. There's a lot of wine glasses in here. Like, a concerning amount of wine glasses. But there are also two tumblers, so score! "I got a cheese platter," she was still frowning. "And crackers. And I cut up fruit. But it doesn't matter. We can just go out." She leans back, and folds her arms over her chest again.

While Anne says that it's fine, Patrick closes a cupboard and waits. While she gets down the glasses, he folds his arms and waits. While she folds her arms and says they can go out, he takes the few steps over to intrude on her personal space and waits. When he's quite sure she's done, he looks down at her with a smile that's equal parts amusement and tolerance and says, "Here we are again."

Lingering long enough to inhale and fill his lungs with familiar perfume, he concludes, "I'm making an old-fashioned once I have lemons, oranges, and sugar cubes. Do you want one? Or are you going to be stubborn about your," derisive, "Irish coffee?"

The thought occurs to Anne in the moment that she should perhaps take a few steps back when he comes to intrude upon her space. But stubborn was an accurate description of how Anne could be, so she holds her ground and tips her chin up, blue eyes narrowing in every attempt to seem hard, but there's just the right amount of gazey in her expression that diminishes the effect. "And where is here, again?" she remarks, and promptly drops her arms.

"I don't even like Irish coffee," she admits, though it's in a very sort of 'as you should know' tone of voice. "I'm going to have a glass of wine. The lemons and oranges are in the fridge," she finally moves, with every intention of brushing around him to get to her wine fridge. Though, before she makes it all the way around him, she looks back up, focusing blue eyes on his gray ones. "I don't want to spend the whole night sniping at one another," it's a quiet request. "I thought if we were someplace quiet, we could..actually have a conversation."

Oh, if she doesn't want to snipe at each other, then Patrick definitely isn't going to answer for where here is, again. That's a sure trip down a Memory Lane that is liberally dotted with potholes. Out of which climb the ghosts of relationships past, who have no agenda other than to ruin relationships future.

Soooo, instead of explaining where here is, he just makes sure to shuffle a step sideways so she has to really go out of her way to get around him. It's a good thing she didn't really expect to get far. "Neither do I." Like Irish coffee? Don't want to spend the whole night sniping at each other? It's hard to place, given the timing of when he puts it into the conversation and the fact that his tone is irritatingly blithe. "To that end, let's take advantage of being someplace quiet," this sentence isn't going to end the way he really wants it to, poor Patrick.

"And have a drink and catch up." He opens a hand into the (very little) space between the two of them, sweeping a be-my-guest gesture for Anne to go and get her glass of wine. He will be busy liberating citrus fruits from the prison of the refrigerator.

There is a brief moment where it looks like Anne might press him to answer where here is, again; certainly, there's a challenging arch of her brow, the purse of her lips suggestive that they might open to do just that. But instead, all that comes is a shake of her head, a bounce of subtly curled golden-brown locks, and a sigh. "Fine," it was, perhaps, actually fine, except for the lack of space between him and the counter that he expects her to fit into. She glances aside, rolls her shoulders back, and makes her move.

That sentence is also not going to end the way Patrick really wants it to, probably, because she has no intention of doing anything more than fitting her little self into the space he's left so that she can go liberate herself a bottle of wine while he frees the citrus fruits. "That's all I wanted," she says back to his comment of catching up and drinking, though the way it's said sort of goes counter to what she said about not sniping at one another. "It's been a long time, you know." In case he forgot. "I feel like all I know about you anymore is that you don't actually have a wife and five kids."

Patrick mouths the word 'fine' soundlessly, like he needs to try out this word she keeps using to see why it's so popular. But no, her fascination with it doesn't occur to him, so he just goes on about getting that orange and lemon worked out. At least having some sort of little errand stops him from walking all over the top of Anne if only for the moment, giving him occasion to nod and make mhm-noises at her about it having been a long time. "You say that like it doesn't speak volumes. I don't have a wife and five kids in Chicago. You have a quaint little house and two dogs in Gray Harbor."

The lemon and the orange get put down next to the glasses, and he's turning in place to look around and request, "Knives." Because no man has ever been able to find anything in a kitchen ever. Except the weird ones that cook. <.<

"I don't know what you think it speaks volumes about," she's just playing ignorant while she pops open the door to her wine fridge and considers the many bottles before her. "I'm doing just fine in my quaint house with my two dogs in Gray Harbor. I have a.." she wavers just long enough to prove the next words coming out of her mouth are an absolute lie: ".. an extremely active social life, actually. I'm always very busy," says the girl with enough wine that she'd be able to drink through the entire zombie apocalypse.

A nice blush is chosen while he's helplessly looking at her to find him a knife, but at least she doesn't roll her eyes at him. She just sighs, sets the bottle down, and waves her fingers at him in a 'shooing' sort of motion. "I've got it, half or quarters? You can get the cheese platter out of the fridge." There's a pause while she fishes the knife out of the drawer, and gets the corkscrew out of another, looking to the side back over to him and saying in a very off-the-cuff sort of way: "So there was nobody in Chicago?"

"What a wonderful liar you've become," says Patrick as if approvingly of her dumb-playing, stopping to turn his most admiring eyes upon Anne. It was meant to be an ironic look, but fake-admiring is well and truly settled into real-admiring by the time she's trying to shoo him out of her way. Of course, he doesn't go anywhere, except like one step to the side so she's going to have to reach around him (ahem) to reach the orange and the lemon that she's so generously agreed to cut. "Just a slice and a twist."

He CAN get the cheese out of the fridge. He just chooses not to. "No, there's nobody in Chicago. The entire city's completely abandoned. Tell me about this extremely active social life of yours. Wine club, is it?" With a pointed look to the wine fridge followed by a 'two can play at that game' dumb smile down at her.

"I had a good teacher back in the day," Anne retorts back with a scoff, briefly putting a hand on her hip to give him an exasperated sort of look as he steps one step to the side. Her brows go up, but the 'really?' is just an expression and not voiced - besides, the fake-real-admiring sort of look that he pins her with somewhat calms her irritation. It also somewhat warms her cheeks again, so she focuses in on the orange, leaning to reach around (ahem) him to snag the orange and lemon.

"What? So I like wine," she bumps fingers against him on complete actual accident in the process of grabbing the lemon, and that just makes the color on her cheeks brighter. At least she doesn't yank her hand away like she's touched a snake, but she doesn't bring attention to the touch either. "Liking wine and having dogs and a quaint house in Gray Harbor doesn't mean I don't have friends. Or that I don't date," she points out while she gets to giving him a slice and a twist, which is sadly not a euphemism for anything. "Which I have, and I do. I was seeing the guy in accounting," once, and it was terrible, even her nose crinkles up as she says it. "And Isabella and I are going on a trip soon. Isabella Reede. The woman who set your pants on fire."

Patrick lets Anne talk without interrupting her, though the super-interested expression he wears the whole time she's talking about this social life of hers is more of the 'so precious' variety than the 'so convinced' variety. As is his nod about the woman who set his pants on fire, he cares about that SO MUCH, look how seriously he's nodding and attending the story she's telling. "To where?" This trip she's taking. "Will you," and he stops her hand, bravely reaching for the one with the knife in it to curl his fingers around the bend of her wrist, "be leaving town?" He looks directly into her eyes and gasps, scandalized.

And also slides the fold of his fingers from around her wrist to around the back of her hand, fitting his fingers in between hers till he can make contact with the handle of that knife. Here's a thing he actually cares about, not her trip with Isabella or the pants the woman in question burned up: "But you're not seeing anyone right now." Enh, it's kind of a question. Borderline. Let's call it an 'inquisitive comment.'

Anne pins him with an unimpressed look as he nods along to her stories, lips bending into a small frown as she attends to the fruits in front of her. "It's just.." she starts, then stalls out when he stops her hand, taking a breath in through her nose when he curls his fingers around her wrist. He might've had her swooning were it not for that faux-scandalized gasp, which has her glaring up to him. "I've left town before. On trips. For school," she points out, the irritation obvious in the tension of her shoulders. "Just not forever. It's.."

His fingers were moving then, sliding into the spaces between her own. Words temporarily fail her, as does her irritation for him; and in that moment, here they were, again, indeed. Without thought, she leans back, a subtle shift but enough to rest her back into his chest and let his weight support her own. It was intimate, and it was also exceptionally brief, considering her brain almost immediately catches up to what her body was doing, and she suddenly jolts upright again. Too stiff, too far forward, it's going to make cutting this orange even more difficult. "We're staying in town. Sort of. We're going to the other side," this is the question she chooses to answer, since his 'inquisitive comment' was not a question. "She wants to explore the pond. Beyond the Veil. And she wants to introduce me to her friend." Pause. "He has a Ph.D."

For that exceptionally brief moment, Patrick will just be over here, with his nose against the back of her neck, stiff in a whole different way - up until Anne gets to talking about the other side, anyway, and then the temperature of this encounter goes from entirely too warm to fucking frosty. It'd be all too easy to misinterpret his abrupt untangling and decision to go get the cheese tray, finally!, as having stemmed from the whole 'friend with a PhD' thing, especially since he ahhhs an enlightened ahh in the two steps it takes to get to the refrigerator. He opens it, looks around inside, and says, "Sounds thrilling."

He can see the cheese tray. It's not like the damn thing is hidden. But he still peers at the things in Anne's refrigerator longer than he needs to before he liberates the thing. And will busy himself with putting together the parts of his drink that don't involve the slice-and-twist that are taking like 400 years to cut. "I'll light a candle for your both," he promises. "When will you be departing this world?"

With her back to him, he won't see the fall of her expression at his abrupt departure. He won't see the brief mist clouding over frost-blue eyes, before she flattens her mouth and finishes cutting the lemon and orange with frustrated motions. With his head in the fridge, he'll likely miss how she reaches back once it's done, to touch the spot on her neck where she'd felt the tip of his nose, the warmth of his breath, fingers brushing against the goosebumps that prickle her skin before she drops her hand and pushes the twist-and-a-slice to the side with a frustrated little huff.

It was all too easy to misinterpret his sudden desire to go find the cheese tray. But Anne knew him, or at least she thought she did; she at the very least knew he was far more likely to press in than push out when it comes to friends with PhDs. "We're just going to look," she says, finally turning on her heel to put her attention back on him. Yet even with that assertion, she looks guilty as hell. "I wasn't going to let them touch anything. Take anything. Bring anything back," it's quiet assurance, words tinted with promise. "If I didn't take them, they'd find another way. They'd find someone who wouldn't be careful."

"The amount that I don't care what happens to them is so minute as to exist on nothing but a quantum scale." So saying, Patrick busily dissolves a sugar cube in the smallest amount of water possible, lifting the glass to eye-level so he can watch the grainy sugar-water move around while he stirs it with a spoon that he totally found entirely on his own, no help needed. \o/ "They could fall in and let the ghosts drag them under," stir stir stir, "and I don't think I'd even notice they were gone." Not least 'cause he doesn't know who any of them are (except Isabella, but he's trying to make a point here).

This scene is going to end and he will still not have finished this ONE DRINK, btw. That's been decided.

"I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for. Or they're looking for, as the case may be." He doesn't hope that. He just doesn't like this conversation, so she's left with empty platitudes. "I suppose just opening the door and shoving them through isn't an option?" Just in case she hadn't thought of that, he looks hopefully at Anne: he's helping!

"I see," the words are spoken through gritted teeth as she snatches up the corkscrew and gets to screwing the bottle. This is why she drinks wine, see? Pop goes the cork, glug-glug-glug goes the wine into a glass, and she's done. There's no slice-and-twist, no sugar cube dissolving, no fuss, no muss. At least it keeps her briefly preoccupied, so that she doesn't jump all over him before he gets to the empty platitudes, and she's just left staring over the rim of her wine cup while she takes a (rather long) sip.

"Now I know what you meant," the glass makes a 'clink' when she sets it back down on the counter. "When you said 'here we are again'. Because here we are," she makes a broad gesture with her hands, extending from herself across the valley of distance between them now, to him. "Again. This is why I stay here, Patrick. This is what I'm here for. To figure out what's over there. And I've never had the opportunity to go beyond City Hall and now I have the means and people to go with and.. and you don't care." She clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth, lets out a huffy breath through her nose, and picks her glass back up.

"So if you don't care," she tips her glass to him. Cheers! "What difference does it make if I toss them through the door or if I go with them?"

mumble mumble screwing the bottle but not patrick that's fine it's not like he brought fucking flowers or anything

"Now you know what I meant," Patrick agrees pleasantly, and not even with an 'even though you're totally wrong' intonation behind it. He's happy that he and Anne are on the same page, and she got there on her very own. While she's busy getting a head-start on drunkenness, he's still measuring out precisely the correct amount of bourbon into the glass, intensely focused on this tiny task, leaving her in his peripheral vision through the process.

"You weren't listening to me." Not that he repeats himself, just shrugs both shoulders and exchanges bourbon for bitters. But he was listening to her, so nyah! Dropping in the bitters, drop drop drop, he notes, "You won't convince me that it's not a fool's errand, Anne, save your breath. Let's just leave it at... drop me a line, if you would, if you make it back. It's awful when people just disappear off the map."

rabble rabble they may be 'fucking' flowers but that doesn't guarantee a fucking

The glass was at her lips again, the wine within slightly tilted, but not yet sipped. She just stares at him, and there's hurt and confusion in those clear blue eyes of hers; but the last line has her tilting the cup away, as if the wine was suddenly bitter. "I was listening," she sets the cup down again, pushing it with her fingertips until it was far away. "I just don't understand you. I don't think I've ever understood you. And so here we are, again," the sigh rushes out of her as she sweeps her fingers through her hair, messing up the subtle curls she'd spent a good hour putting in. "I wanted us to be somewhere else now," it's a sort of resigned admission, a clear indication that this wasn't how she expected this evening to go. "We should've just gone out."

The look she lays upon him now is an apologetic one. Maybe she's sorry he hasn't had a chance to make his bourbon & bitters. Maybe she's sorry she spent all this time cutting up oranges and lemons. "I think you should probably just go. This is.. exactly why I drink alone in my bathtub," at least she has a dry laugh to go along with that last part.

With a sigh that's perhaps not as dramatic as hers, Patrick agrees, "I've wanted us to be somewhere else for more than ten years. You get used to it." Like he knows it's cold comfort, but he still feels for her, being a rookie to this particular want. Then he gets told he should probably just go, and any inkling of sympathy evaporates into the tension that pulls his shoulders up and back, that holds gray eyes on blue for the moment before he agrees with a fractional nod. He puts down the drink he was really looking forward to, takes a breath like he has some quip, and releases it around the quick uptick at the corners of his mouth, the one pretending to be a smile.

"Good night, Anne." He'll make sure not to let the damn dogs escape.

"And by the way? You were somewhere else for more than ten years," is Anne's reply. But it doesn't happen until the door shuts and he's gone and she's left with her wine and her dogs and those pretty, sweet-smelling tulips. Oh, and quite a bit of inner turmoil.

What comes before all of that is just a slip of a nod of her head, a flattening of her lips so that she is neither pretending to smile nor actually frowning, and a quiet: "Good night, Patrick."