2019-11-20 - The Sea Is In Their Blood

Halloween was a bear. Ruiz would know, he was present for most of it.

At the end of the day, it is purpose that drives Isabella Reede, and finally freed of William Gohl's haunting, the Veil-flu, and whatever strangeness had been inflicted upon her during the Masquerade, she dives into the demands of her to-do list with the energy and enthusiasm of a young woman who always has someplace to be.

The sun is sinking by the time she arrives at where Captain de la Vega has suggested they meet, carrying a flask within the inner pocket of her pocket and a pair of shotglasses, just in case. The autumnal winds carry a chilly bite, promising a particularly harsh winter - it whips unforgivingly against her face, whipping color against her cheekbones.

When he arrives, he'd find her dressed for the weather, clad in a double-breasted, dove-gray peacoat over jeans and a scarf wound around her neck. It's officially November, but it feels close to actual winter. Framed by a backdrop of trees mottled with vibrant reds and golds, she looks bright-eyed and determined as ever, tresses blown loose from her customary bind blowing against her face, striking irises gleaming like a cat's in the encroaching twilight. Her hands are tucked in her pockets.

Where else? The clearing at the edge of the Firefly forest, near where it borders the fence and the old sawmill. The captain's already there, and suited up in comfortable clothing that affords for movement: a faded old tee shirt and dark cargo pants and hiking boots, and a Seattle PD hoodie pulled over top. The sleeves are pushed up to his elbows to expose a goodly amount of his ink, and he has a cigarette caught between his lips as he finagles a fresh magazine into the rifle he's chosen for this particular outing. He's driven out here in the Charger today; its brutish black silhouette is hard to miss amongst the smattering of older model sedans and trucks in the lot.

He safeties his weapon at the sound of footsteps on the path, and glances over his shoulder at the arriving brunette with the green-gold eyes. "Isabella," he greets, low-voiced. There's an undercurrent of warmth to his otherwise staid delivery. "How are you feeling?"

Their place. If nothing else, in spite of the rumors that surround it, she can't help but have fond memories of the lush greenery this wilderness hold for her, added on by the fact that this is the place where they normally go shooting. There's a glance towards the fence and the view of the Addington Saw Mill in the distance, a small frown of remembrance there. There's some unfinished business related to that, but nothing that she's going to touch at the moment.

Isabella's expression brightens when she finally sees the Captain and considering the last few weeks, it feels like she hasn't seen or talked to him in forever. He is not the most emotive, gruff and these days, somewhat distant - unsurprising considering the pressures on the PD in certain cases, and whatever other things he is enduring post-Gohl. But to see him now, calling her by name, fills her with relief that she is incapable of expressing in words and her bootsteps quicken.

If he allows this impulsive, reckless creature, she'll throw her arms around his neck in an embrace that holds nothing back, always the sort who invests her entire being on a single act once she wants to, once she decides. "Javier," she breathes, worry and relief tangling into the syllables of his name. Pulling back, she flashes him a smile, stripped of anything other than the simple joy of seeing him alive enough to take the time to meet with her. "I'm alright - a few rough bumps, but they're nothing I can't recover from. What about you? How are you?"

Her expression turns faintly sheepish. "Alexander told me you were at the Church when it happened. Thank you, for what you did."

Green-gold eyes gravitate immediately to the Charger though. "Is that it?" she asks, quietly, raw and open appreciation slipping over her expressive mien as she spies the black, classic beast parked nearby.

This time of year, the canopy is a bright tapestry of gold and russet and crimson, woven together with fading light that filters in from a gloaming sky. The shadows are growing long and ominous, and the scent of gunpowder and nicotine is a sharp tang on the air as Isabella approaches. And makes to wrap him in a hug of all things. He does allow; though the unexpectedness of it has him briefly stiffening, as if somewhere deep in the synapses of his brain, he half expected her to take a swing at him. But then he settles, and the muscle strung taut through his much bulkier frame unwinds, and he briefly slides his own arms around her waist for an affectionate squeeze. After hitching his rifle's strap and slinging it across his back.

How is he? "I've-" He falters, and there's a twinge of something in his eyes and in his voice. "I'm well enough." He releases her when she pulls back, and though the smile isn't returned, there's warmth in his eyes that she'd know how to find by now. "I didn't do much. Although, speaking of which.." He hesitates, tongue run along his lower lip thoughtfully. Then a chuckle, low, at her glance toward his car. He follows the line of her gaze for a moment, adjusts the brim of his cap.

After some internal debate, "Would you like to go for a drive?"

His faltering is taken in because of course it does - sharp as always, perceptive as always, the flicker in his deceptively dark eyes is noted and she doesn't hide the fact that she does, not with a face like hers. There is a pause in Isabella, watching his face carefully, before she replies with a simple, "I heard you did plenty." Her smile returns, lingering along the pliant line. "Honestly, it was kind of embarrassing. I don't require rescuing all too often, but when I do..."

She tilts her head back and regards the bright canopy stretched above their heads. "I'm always at peace here, though, which is weird considering all the stories attached to this place. But the good memories I have here tend to outweigh the bad. And I'm making more, with you."

That incandescent grin flashes, enough for him to glimpse her teeth at the quick rejoinder: "Especially if we're going out on a drive in a day like this. Let's go!" She takes an enthusiastic step towards the Charger, practically brimming with that excited, restless energy. "What a beast, and I bet it sounds like one, too. So all the work done on it came out alright?" she wonders, looking over at him with curious eyes. "You mentioned it spent some time in the shop, recently. Mister Rosencrantz's?"

Speaking of which.

That curiosity grows. "Speaking of which...?" she prompts. "Is it what you wanted to talk to me about? You mentioned you wanted...after the funeral."

He doesn't comment any further on what he did or did not do in that church; his thoughts keep their own counsel, probably wherever he's shoved down what passes for emotion in the man. "No man is an island, and all of that," he offers with a slight twist of his lips. His dark eyes linger on hers. A beat, another, and then drag away as he does a quick check of the perimeter to make sure he hasn't left anything lying around that he shouldn't have.

"I think Roen might be onto something," he opines, voice pitched quiet enough so that it's roughened with gravel and smoke. "With his living alone out here, putting distance between himself and others." For their sake, or his? His gaze rounds back on the bright-eyed brunette, just in time to catch her grin; like a flame, and he a moth who wants to inch closer but daren't. "Si, it's idling much better now. Rosencrantz does good work." Could be a touch of something there in the way a muscle twitches in his jaw, but it's so subtle that most would have a hard time spotting it.

"The funeral? I don't recall. Ven ahora, vamonos." He touches her shoulder, then hitches the rifle's strap and begins trudging off down the path with a crunch of boots in gravel.

No man is an island.

Isabella flashes him a very long look at that, before she suddenly laughs, shaking her head once as she takes several steps towards the Charger. "My father raised me to be self-reliant, but stubbornness and youth are how they are. If you hadn't noticed, I tend to overcompensate on that very hard." She's sure he has, she is prepared for any returned look he casts her way, but mischief remains on her features. "It tends to drive people crazy, but considering the natures of those with whom I spend my time? It's due comeuppance. That includes you, too."

The touch on her shoulder has her moving again, and she slides her hands in the pockets of her coat as she follows. "I think August likes people. He likes them very much. I don't think he would be so determined to avail himself to others if he didn't, but I think being out here grounds him, too." She tilts her head back as she walks alongside him, closing her eyes and relishing the chill that whips against her cheeks, flushing color from underneath the surface - she is not a blusher, blessed and cursed with a certain degree of shamelessness that this is probably one of the only ways to see what it might look like. "I think it's part of him, this certain affinity to the earth and the trees. Though if he ever told me that sometimes people can get a little too much, I can see that in him, too." Her voice grows soft at the following words: "The last time I saw him, he looked tired."

Her eyes lift to regard his hard profile. "Are you thinking of doing the same?" she wonders. "Living out here, or something similar?"

"I'd noticed," he replies with some amusement, on the topic of overcompensation and comeuppance. He walks alongside the younger woman, rather than lagging behind or blazing on ahead, seemingly content to moderate his stride to hers. "And I think you're likely right about Roen." Liking people. Ironically, one probably couldn't say the same about the captain. Wants to like them, certainly. Wants to understand them, and be in the orbit of a select few, but his very nature makes that difficult.

He walks in silence for a while longer, and it isn't until they emerge from the treeline, his hand withdrawing from his pants pocket with a jangle of keys, that he speaks again. "Es firme, como el álamo temblón. But he can only carry so many burdens before he breaks." His dark, slanted eyes alight on her, then drag away again as he unlocks the passenger side door of his car, and crosses around to the driver's side.

The interior of the brutish looking beast is about what one might expect from a police cruiser: sparse and utilitarian, with a multitude of switches and controls built into a panel bolted onto the dash. A laptop is attached to a swivel in the centre column, and the overhead rack that normally contains a small assortment of firearms is currently empty - until he slots the one in that he'd been carrying, locking it into place and swinging into the seat to flick a switch under the steering wheel.

"I'm getting a house built, actually," he murmurs as he belts himself in. "One of those going up on Maple."

His amusement only broadens her grin, enough to drag out the usually hidden dimple from her left cheek. "You're a hunter, Javier," Isabella says, as if he needed a reminder. A hunter of men, the most dangerous game. "Something tells me you've always had the eyes of one, even when you were young." She's seen him look at others, even those closest to him - it is similar to the way he looks through the scope of a sniper rifle.

"They change color," she tells him, apropos of nothing. "Did you know that? Your eyes. Alexander's does, also, under the right light and circumstance."

The passenger door unlocked, she clambers in, eager and enthusiastic. Not even thirty, Isabella is already young but there's something about her movements and the uncomplicated excitement radiating off her form and figure that would be reminiscent of one that's even younger. She is practically vibrating on her seat when she buckles in, and takes in the interior of the cruiser, her heart pounding already and he hasn't even started the monster yet. A hand reaches out, because she can't help it, a tactile creature who tends to immerse herself wholly in the horrors and wonders of the physical world, this tendency to touch, and smell, and taste and hear and see is as much part of her as her unbridled inquisitiveness. "How quickly does she get to sixty?" she murmurs, clearly looking forward to this.

She only catches bits and pieces of his Spanish; Latin languages are what they are. "I don't know if there's a force in the planet that could stop August from doing that, so I hope those closest to him know that he needs a break now and then." Worry stitches over her brow, before she casts her gaze sidelong at him. "That's a common thread among the three of you, I think."

Mention of the house has her lifting her brows in surprise. "You are? I knew you were looking for a new place, but I didn't know it was an actual project. I was wondering why you brought up August's living arrangements, but I'm happy to hear it, if it'll give you a place that you can call home...or at the very least yours."

The dimple in her grin seems to draw his own out of hiding. Furtive thing that it is. He says nothing of being a hunter, but to his credit he's in the midst just then of trying to make sure his rifle's secured and not going to drop in Isabella's lap mid-drive. He slams his door then, and belts himself in before starting the ignition with a low, animal-sounding thrum after the higher-pitched noise of the engine turning over. "Do they?" Change colour. He lifts his chin to squint at himself in the rearview mirror; they're a dark, mossy green at the moment that could appear nearly black to one not looking closely. Then an indistinct grunt, and he pulls the laptop a little closer to himself and out of her way.

And although her commentary on August has him contemplating her words for a few moments, he doesn't comment further upon the man for the time being. Instead, "I am. I can't stay at the Sea View forever, much as I love the murder hotel ambiance. I considered a houseboat, you know." He slides her an amused look. And then puts the car into gear, and swings a lazy arc to steer them out of the lot and toward the road.

The sight of that dimple has Isabella raising her eyebrows at him, but he can see it - she teases him with her eyes and the grin playing on her lips that only broadens the more it lingers. And really, with an expression like that, does she have to say anything? She's definitely taking a mental picture of it.

"They do," she confirms with that air of conclusive finality, ever decisive as she settles in her seat and assists him, if he lets her, organizing the interior of his Charger to make room for herself and so things that don't need to be jostled are out of the way.

Talk about the Sea View has her slanting a look in his direction, surprise on her features. She had not known that he was staying there. "The hotel owned by the Krugers before..." They were murdered, though the last few words don't leave her lips. "Well, I'm doubly glad you're leaving it, then, and getting a place of your own. Plus, if it's a new build, then you get to customize it all you want and truly make it your own." His later amusement taken in stride, she laughs and tilts her head back against her seat. "You're stressed enough as it is," she points out. "There are a lot of other considerations that go into owning a houseboat, like overworked appliances and the regular, manual emptying of septic tanks, but especially over the summers, it's nice. You can just head out to the cove if you want to get away from the city for a while. And we could have been neighbors. Andy Geroux's practically moving in next door, I ran into him seriously considering a houseboat on the docks a couple of weeks or so ago back."

There's a curious light in her eyes as she regards him. "Intending to live alone?" Sutton?

Isabella's is such an expressive face; always so quick and keen to light up with excitement, or playfulness, or anger. Like she's fueled by a fire in her blood, and can't help but be incandescent with the heat of it. He's drawn to watching her, like a moth to her flame, and her grin finds a slight increase in his own smile, in reply. Which is all but obliterated at mention of the Sea View murders. "Si," he agrees, voice low. Tick, tock, tick, tock as he signals and waits to turn, then swings the car onto the highway and taps the gas. It responds with a low and almost vicious growl, like a beast brought to life. And that beast wants to go fast.

"Geroux? Sergeant Geroux?" Of course Sergeant Geroux. It's a small town, how many Andy Gerouxs could there possibly be? "I didn't know he was looking. And no, I really don't think a houseboat is something I have time for. It's.." He's thoughtful for a time, and settles back in his seat a bit once they reach highway speed and the landscape begins to slide past like an oil painting. "My father owned a fishing boat. When I was a child." As if that explains it. As to her question? "Alone. For now."

It isn't just the speed, but the sound of the mighty beast when the Charger finds the open road and Ruiz puts on the gas. At his periphery, she practically burns like a comet, Isabella clinging to her seat and unable to suppress her growing smile. "Holy shit, she sounds incredible," she breathes in appreciation that borders on bliss, the rush of gasoline through the cylinders running in sync with how blood rushes through her veins. Her pulse tics like a hummingbird's wings at the side of her throat and she all but manages to restrains herself from saying it: Go faster.

The Captain's identification has her attention swinging back to her companion, nodding in confirmation. "He was. He lives with his mother now, but since he's here long term, he was thinking of purchasing his own - at least when I ran into him in the docks anyway. He's a good guy, Andy, and very interesting. I didn't know he was FBI until he moved back here." There's a quick grin. "PADI-certified too, though it's lapsed. I don't think he's actually kept it up after graduating from Quantico. Apparently it's a requirement."

She falls silent when Ruiz pauses, and surprise flits over her features when he tells her that his father owned a fishing boat. It is open, and just as unfettered as the rest of her, but the change on her face is absolutely profound and perhaps even embarrassing to look at, because this is the first time the man has told her anything about himself outside of the job , and voluntarily to boot, without any coercion from her, and that small, seemingly insignificant bit of his history only stokes those glowing embers of interest. "I didn't know," she says, finally - it must be ridiculous to many, to feel so happy about it, but she is and she doesn't hide it. "The sea's in your blood. - just like mine." More in common than they themselves realize. "Did you go with him, sometimes? Out there?"

She doesn't address the last - at least, not yet.

The captain has plenty in common with his car, truth be told. They both are animals under the hood, fierce in temperament and kept to heel by the skin of the teeth of those who hold power over them. And the man seated beside Isabella smiles slow when she speaks soft her appreciation for the machine. Does he hear those two words traced at the surface of her mind? Does he need to? His hands close over the steering wheel, eleven and one instead of the more standard ten and two; it's an aggressive position, though one presumes he knows his car well enough for it. And then, after nudging them into the left hand lane with a little course correction, he taps the gas and the monster takes off like a bat out of hell.

The sound as the car climbs the gears, and the resultant little pop of momentum as they're shoved back against their seats with each one, is almost sexual. The thing practically screams its pleasure, smoke rising briefly from the tire burnout on its initial acceleration, then dissipating as they pick up speed and race into the gathering dark.

"It is. I considered letting you know sooner, but.." But he's an intensely private man, and hoards the details of his life obsessively. "Si." The thing corners not as well as some, but well enough. They rocket through a shallow turn, headed rapidly out of town and along the coastline. "I went with him often. I think I've not been able to leave it, since. The sea." His dark eyes flick askance to Isabella, and hold hers for a longer moment than is possibly advisable, at the speed they're going. Then back to the road.

Go faster, she wills, and he hears her through the wind.

There's a whoop and a laugh when the Charger is unleashed on the unsuspecting road, and Isabella is unable to help herself when a WOOO! escapes her, her laughing eyes and excited expression slanted Ruiz's way as the autumnal fields that frame the road turn into a riotous blur of orange, red and gold. Her pulse quickens, the sound of it in her ears drowned out by the bestial roar from under the hood. Her hand reaches up, to clutch on the oh shit bar when she feels inertia press her body into the seat, but her grin cuts through the darkness of the car's interior like a razor. She is not a blusher, color only bleeds in her cheeks under certain circumstances - but danger and drive, when most of her senses are pushed to feeling everything at once are guaranteed to put it visibly on her.

I considered letting you know sooner, but...

"It's alright," she tells him. "I know I make it a habit of asking questions, but when it comes to things like that, I actually prefer that people share those details willingly. It can..." And another laugh escapes her, breathless from adrenaline. "...be frustrating, because I'm curious, but I don't want others to feel like I'm coercing them to do it in order to keep a connection to me. It wouldn't...feel right. Is...that strange?"

The shallow turn has her body following it and when Autumn foilage falls away in view of the water, she can't help but gravitate to the sight of it, her breath touching the window and fogging it gently, obscuring some of the details until it fades. "It always makes me feel better, being close to it. I keep that to myself, usually...I don't find a lot of people who understand the need for it. But maybe there's a reason for that...." She gestures to her chest with her fingers. "...Alexander tells me that I'm all fire and hurricanes within. It nearly cooked him, putting me back to rights after Halloween." Her eyes lift to regard Ruiz when he holds her gaze. "Maybe neither of us can leave it for long because of that - our natures, where and how we began...we need it too much." She glances at the window and the coast. "Too badly."

After a moment, her attention moves over to him again. "Where did you go?" she asks. "With your father? My own taught me, also." To swim, to dive. She learned how to do both before she could read and add her numbers.

The torque coming out of this thing is much more than one might expect from a four thousand pound car, no doubt owing at least partly to the 370 odd horses under the hood, working in combination with the rear wheel drive. The 5.7 litre HEMI practically growls as it's unleashed on each fresh turn, and devours the road like it hasn't eaten in days. It requires a steady hand, of course; and with him pushing the beast to its limits - to the tune of a cool 120 miles per hour once they hit a straightaway - his attention is focused solidly on the road now.

"I assure you I'm not accusing you of any such thing," he tells Isabella once he has a moment, with a flickering smile that's quickly banished by his teeth pressed against his lower lip, and a rapid downshift of the transmission as the road twists through a stand of sky-scraping redwoods. They're definitely not in Gray Harbour anymore. "To be honest, it hadn't come up." Where did they go? "Open water. Fishing, like I said. It was a working boat, not a pleasure craft. I helped him with the nets, and sorting the catch at the end of the day. It was hard work." Might explain some of his calluses.

Then, "How are you doing? Since.. you were put back to rights." There's something else he wants to mention on that subject, but holds his tongue for now.

"What, be frustrating?" Isabella's mischief returns because she knows she can be, as if following the roar of the Charger, her excitement bursting from every line of her like fireworks as the HEMI does its work, and she can't help another triumphant shout, carried along by the tidal wave of the moment as it leaps into the open road. "She's incredible!" she can't help but say, hanging onto her seat and watching as the environment around them dissolves into vague shapes, and dizzying blurs of color. She immerses herself there, too, her eyes taking in the kaleidoscope speed and raw power affords them.

"Oh, I meant...where. Were you in the Atlantic side, or the Pacific?" she wonders, because of course she would want to know which ocean flows through his veins; she gets that his father is a fisherman, and going with him, presumably he was being taught the trade. And then, after a pause: "Why did you leave the sea?" Not completely, of course - the man was a marine after all, and the term is quite specific, but the underlying implications of the poetic question are unmistakable, attempting to chart his life from a fishing boat to holding a gun.

When he asks her, she glances down at her fingers. "Mostly alright," she confesses quietly after doing nothing but listening to the beast under the black hood growl in that powerful, sensuous and satisfying way. "I can barely remember what else happened after I was grabbed and I really only heard bits and pieces from Alexander and Byron. I got the impression that the particulars of it were difficult for them to revisit, because they wouldn't tell me the details. When he, Tobin and Ronnie paved the way for me in my own head, something felt like it rattled loose....and after that I was able to do things I didn't think I would be able to, again. Alexander mentioned something about having a conversation with the person who orchestrated it, also. He thinks that he works for Them."

It must be his expression, because after studying him for a moment, she asks: "What is it?"

Time both seems to move more quickly, and yet stand still all at once, at the speed they're going. The landscape indeed becomes a soft, indistinct blur, and everything fades to the noise of the engine being put through its paces; the road rumbling with a low, insistent thrum against the car's undercarriage; the high-pitched whine as it rockets toward the higher gears, then drops back down with a guttural snarl.

"Pacific. He worked out of the port of Veracruz." The memory is old and dearly held, like a timeworn antique; close to his heart. Why did he leave the sea? "I didn't." Isabella's discovered the right of it: "We lived in Tijuana for a while, then East LA. Joined the Marines, served overseas. Then I fucked around before winding up in Seattle, and-" And Gray Harbour, shortly after. His eyes tick over briefly with the answer she provides to his question: mostly alright. "I'm glad they were able to help. I hope it wasn't too much for them, whatever they.. rattled loose." He has no idea what they found in there, though he's probably got some idea, based on what he knows of the temperamental brunette.

Her question garners a long silence. The Charger's headlights slice through the gloom once they leave the outer town limits, and already he can feel it calling to him. A touch at the back of his neck, asking him to come back. A vague feeling that he's going the wrong way. "I breached his mind." No more explanation than that, for now.

"You lived most of your life in sunnier climates than this, it sounds like," Isabella remarks, her smile lingering - these pieces would be insignificant to others, perhaps, but they are his - her friend's - so they are not to her, especially one so private that he hoards these nuggets with the rabid ferocity of a wolf with a lair. "I'd ask if you find all the rain terribly exhausting, but I don't think it is." Because she is the same - she loves the water, and any way she could get it on her skin.

"Why'd you leave the marines?" she asks, because despite his age, it's not as if he can't fight, doesn't know how to read the terrain or take a life. She's seen some of the violence he is capable of, how skillfully he holds a gun and wields his fists. He is easily one of the most dangerous men - dangerous people - she knows. She is a commander's daughter, inured to the auras of those who can't live without battle in some form or fashion, and she had seen what it had done to her father when that had been taken away from him by a debilitating injury.

Mention of the attempt has her smiling. "If it had been too much for them, I don't think they would ever admit it," the archaeologist tells him wryly, and with no small degree of fond exasperation for the three men who executed it.

It's the long silence, in the end, that creases her brow with concern, but it's only when he drops that bomb on her lap that has her swiveling her attention towards him with wide eyes. "....are you alright?" is the first thing she asks, before her eyes narrow into glittering emerald slits, a lash of fury whipping out of her like a thunderclap. "Did he try to do anything to you?"

"I do, and I don't." Find the rain exhausting. It's a non-answer, but all he seems inclined to give at the moment. "But yes, I've found the weather has taken some getting used to." They're headed through a pass as he speaks; the road climbs along the edge of a deep, tree-lined gorge, and he has to bring the vehicle down to a more manageable speed as they ascend along hairpin turns in the near-dark. When asked why he left the Marines, that soft groove between his brows appears, as it often does when he's contemplating something. "I lost-" His fingers tighten on the steering wheel, then relax infintesimally. "I lost my wife and son while I was deployed in Afghanistan," he confides quietly. "So I mustered out."

The topic of his time in the service is left alone then when Isabella questions him about Peregrine. "I'm fine. And no, though he's cocky as fuck. And seems intrigued by you." His dark eyes slide over her frame as she swivels half toward him, drinking in her fury with a twinge of something at the corners of his mouth. "Not that I blame him, entirely. Did you talk to him? Before he took your pendant."

The hairpin turns in the dark can't help but ensnare her interest again, following the headlights as they continue to speed out of Gray Harbor with nothing but what the Charger has got to guide them in these tricky paths. The fact that Javier can maneuver the beast with such speed in near-darkness where there is nothing but trees and concrete inspires an honest and open admiration on her features that he could easily glimpse - and no small measure of envy. She loves cars, the classic American muscle is her favorite, but to say that she can drive the way he can would be a lie. The fact that she wishes she could is very visible upon her, silently astounded over how she has managed to fall into a pool of complicated, but absurdly talented people.

"You're a marvel behind the wheel," she tells him simply, in a way that suggests that this is factual and objective; she is not prone to flattery in the slightest when sober.

Told about his wife - the mysterious Karin - and his son brings a moment of silence from her, expressive face twisting. Not just because of the loss, or the pain attached to it, but the fact that he wasn't there, and probably had to hear about it in the field. "Javier..." The intonation of his name is soft, syllables writ heavy with the emphatic resonance of one who carries a similar hole within herself, but she doesn't tell him that she is sorry. What she does say is: "...when you told me that you don't understand, but you know...I believed you, then. I just...couldn't say it." Her eyes fall solemnly on his dashboard. "Didn't want to confirm it." She takes a breath. "I think maybe the two of us are prone to jealously hoarding our pain." She still remembers their impasse.

Seems intrigued by you. She makes a face. "If he didn't do anything but talk to you after breaching his mind, and Alexander when he confronted him, it sounds like a lot of people I know intrigue him." Another whipcrack lash of that hot, molten temper, bristling like an angry star on his passenger seat. But when asked, she shakes her head. "I punched him immediately when I was grabbed. My father taught me not to think about it and just do it when someone unfamiliar dares. I tried to run, but then I smelled the yellow flowers and everything became hazy after that. I only encountered him at the Church, I don't know precisely where I lost my pendant, just that I found it there." But Ruiz would know where she did - in City Hall, captured by the footage.

She furrows her brows as she tries to think about it. "He was touching my face when he laid me down on the ground. He had gloves. I couldn't see his eyes. He said something to me while he was hovering over me, but I can't remember what it was. I've been trying to, but everything was a blur by that point before I just slipped away."

He could not, in all honesty, be termed a highly skilled driver so much as a man with reflexes honed from months out in the desert with nothing but a sniper rifle, a field kit and fuckloads of situational awareness (and patience). Who survived to tell the tale. As such, he has no obvious training in maneuvering a car beyond standard requalification requirements for remaining on the force. Talent and passion? Plenty of it.

Jealously hoarding their pain? It shouldn't make him laugh, but it does; the sound is warm and rough, like water passed over sharp rocks. "No creo que te equivoques," he replies in a low, amused murmur, dark eyes flicking back to her again, and snagging on those bright green-golds for just an instant. Then back to the road, and briefly the time on the dashboard. They should turn back, and he does; a turn off is taken toward a lookout point, tires hitting gravel with a surge of the engine as it downshifts reluctantly and churns dust into the gloaming sky.

"Si, he seems to fancy himself a collector of people. And your pendant, he took it in City Hall. Do you remember? The petition against the Casino?" He's quiet then as she describes him speaking to her, and there's a sudden and irrational and ferocious desire in him to want to know. To take the knowledge from her if she can't or won't give it. He swallows slowly, adam's apple jerking against his throat as he does so. "Well, if you think of anything else. You'll let me know?"

She catches enough latin from the phrase to know where the root of his amusement comes from, and Isabella flashes him a mock-indignant and almost petulant look that she doesn't quite mean, but it's rare to hear him laugh; the fact that she doesn't even remember the last time she heard it puts an answering grin on her features, leaning back on her seat as she watches the car turn and start eating up the miles back to Gray Harbor. She hasn't even noticed how dark it has gotten, until the moment they hit the grove and there was nothing but trees.

"You laugh," she chides. "But it's true. And it's not..." She pauses, to search for the words. "...healthy. For either of us. I've been trying to be better about it."

He prods her memory, and she blinks. "So I did lose it there, but he transported it to the Church?" Deliberate, then, and her jaw sets in that fierce, furious, stubborn line. "I see. Thanks, for letting me know." Brows furrow as she looks at him. "...so people saw him in City Hall?"

She chews on her bottom lip. "If I think of anything else, I'll definitely let you know." Another long pause as she examines his hard profile quietly, watching shadows spill over it and highlight his sharper features. She's a perceptive creature, always has been - it could be the sudden, intense spark of emotion from him, or the way he swallows and the sudden tension that braids over his shoulders, but whatever she sees or detects from him spurs her to ask, tentatively: "Javier, this guy...what did he say to you?"

Filaments of her temper remain, but they are blunted by clear concern.

"Mm. I do laugh." A flash of his eyes, a flash of his dimples. Brief, but there; his warmth runs as deep as his fury, as his grief. He is a man steeped in emotion, trained to stamp them into oblivion by the rigors of his job and his own stubbornness. "And you're right, of course." That it isn't healthy. His smile wisps away at that, and he says nothing more of it. Nothing of the talk he had with Alexander, the way the man forced him out of his comfort zone like a goddamned professional.

Or, one might argue, like a good friend.

"So far, eyewitness reports have been conflicting. But I was able to get my hands on CCTV footage, which is what gave me enough to hunt him down." And oh, the surge of adrenaline when he crashed through that plate glass window and into Peregrine's sitting room like a wild and ferocious thing. People like Alexander and August ask to be let in; de la Vega tears his way inside whether it's asked for or not. His eyes tick over again when she asks her question. Hands on the steering wheel, eleven and one; the car growls her pleasure at being fed more speed, and they burst out of the treeline and find themselves back on that coastal route. The sea churns and froths below, leaping against the rocks, tempting gulls with the last of the day's catch.

"Nothing important. He was trying to get under my skin." He works his jaw and focuses on the road again. In the distance, Welcome to Gray Harbour, a smudge against the dark.

She doesn't pry, and in spite of her closeness to Alexander, Isabella tends not to insert herself in his relationships with others, cognizant of the years he spent relatively isolated and therefore his need to form connections of his own. With the Captain, though, there are other reasons for that - his volatility calls and provokes her own, and when that happens, the effects are unpredictable and dangerous.

I do laugh.

"I wish you did more often," she tells him. She's teasing him, but it's also sincerely meant.

Her attention splits between the surf and the road, her heartrate ratcheting back up yet again when they find the path leading back to the city. On the edge of her seat again, unable to tire of it - out here, the sky and the water stretches for miles, flying past in an array of more muted colors. She basks in it, because she can't help it, submerging herself yet again in the whims of her physical senses.

He was trying to get under my skin. Sharp eyes catch the way he works his jaw, lips pursing thoughtfully. "Did he?" she asks quietly, because this could be important. "Get under your skin?" Her attention, the whole of it, locks into the side of his face.

His volatility provokes her own, provokes his; they feed each other, rile each other up, energise each other like a house on fire. And just as potentially destructive.

"No me presiones," he murmurs to her imploring him to laugh more often. His eyes slant up slightly, slivers of glossy dark in his weathered face. Whose profile is all hard, brutish lines softened by scruffy, greying beard and deep grooves run like narrow ravines from the corners of his eyes, and spidered along his cheeks. His nose has clearly been broken; a few times, by appearances, and not necessarily set properly after each.

"Yes," he replies eventually to her query. And then they've blown past the 'city' limits, and the sprawl of home is laid out before them like scattered toys, washed in hazy lamplight.

No promises.

"I know," Isabella says with a sudden laugh. "I wouldn't have it any other way." In that regard, she's not that much different from Alexander - she, too, likes the interesting ones.

The news, though, that Peregrine had gotten under his skin has the throes of her earlier laughter dimming to make way to a frown, watching the sign welcoming them back to the city's cursed maw breeze past them in a flurry of color. Her jaw works, a dozen responses tumbling over her head. Fingers ball over her knees.

What she elects to say, instead, is a quiet: "Javier, you don't have to talk to me. I'm here, if you would like to, but if not, and since he's dangerous and he said something that affected you, I hope that you'd talk to someone if not just so he could watch your six in the event that your encounter with him has heightened his interest in you also. You might not be able to promise me your laughter, but can you at least promise me that? Don't take on this guy alone, especially if he can get to you."

What does Javier say to that?

Nothing at all. But she's given him plenty to think about. The remainder of the drive to the docks is conducted in silence, though he'll smile a little and lean over to touch her shoulder and kiss her cheek before she goes. "Stop worrying about me," he tells her at last. "I'm not so easy to kill." She has proof of that, but is this man's goal to kill him? To kill any of them? Or worse?

"Buenas noches, Isabella." Her name is pronounced with the Spanish inflection, and a little smile that doesn't linger on his staid features. And then he releases her to the night.

Stop worrying about me.

"You guys," Isabella declares, flashing him a look after that brief peck on the cheek. "Really need to stop telling me that. It's useless." Her expression softens at that, and a small smile curls up on the corners when she disembarks from the Charger, and leaves an affectionate pat on its hood.

"Buenas noches, Javier." And with that, she turns to head back to her houseboat.