2019-12-29 - Is The Ocean, To The Shore?

(TXT to Ruiz) Isabella : Javier? Are you free today? I'm sorry it's so late but I got you something for Christmas. I couldn't give it to you because certain...things got in the way.

(TXT to Isabella) Ruiz : (a few minutes later) You didn't have to do that. I.. can make myself free. Where do you want to meet?

(TXT to Ruiz) Isabella : That's the glorious thing about gifts, Javier. It's all about wanting to, and not needing to. Where are you now? I can meet you there.

(TXT to Isabella) Ruiz : I'm at home. Trying to put off shoveling the fucking drive. You want to come out here? I can feed you, if you haven't already eaten

(TXT to Ruiz) Isabella : That sounds like a plan. I'll be right up, just text me your address.

(TXT to Isabella) Ruiz : (address follows) I'll try to get some of the snow cleared. Drive safely.

(TXT to Ruiz) Isabella : I will.

She does, thankfully, drive safely.

There is an appreciative eye cast to Isabella's surroundings when the cherry-red Jeep winds up the forest path leading to Ruiz's new acquisition. Its familiarity nags at her for a few moments, until she realizes this is near where August's own cabin is, somewhere on the other side, obscured as it is by drifts of snow that pile upwards. It paints a pretty picture, when there's so much green from the more coniferous trees contrasting sharply with all the pure, pristine white blanketing everything. Christmas may be over, but out here, it is easy to forget the fact.

When the young woman finally parks, and shows up at Ruiz's front door, the sun is on its way towards the line separating sky and land, a scarlet-and-gold cast setting the bronze highlights of her hair on fire. She's left off mentioning a few things made apparent by her appearance, it seems - she's leaning on a crutch, her left foot bound by waterproof bindings, the injury kept off the ground. There's also a fading bruise on her right cheek and distressingly, there seems to be a device attached to her ear - a hearing aid? She also appears dressed like an Arctic explorer, nevermind the fact that it isn't that cold despite the snow, though the make of her gear would make any expedition specialist proud - her outer jacket is fitted over layers of clothing that she is wearing, a scarf covering half her face and there's a knit cap pulled over her forehead.

In spite of how she looks, she is in good spirits when she sees him. Brilliant green-and-gold eyes crinkle in the corners at her smile, half-hidden as it is by her scarf. She has a very festive looking gift bag in her hand when she presents it to him. "Feliz navidad, Javier!" she greets cheerfully. "Again, I'm sorry it's late. You finally got it, huh? Your own place?" She leans in to buss the air next to his cheek, her breath felt through the scarf. "It looks great, I think August might just live over there, somewhere."

He's outside when that familiar jeep rolls up. The drive is shoveled as promised, and Javier's just in the process of stowing the shovel in a little shed attached to the side of the house. He trudges back onto the drive, steps slowing, stopping entirely when she kills the ignition and climbs out. And his expression goes a little funny when he spots the crutch, the bruise. Then she's stepping in close for one of those air kisses, and there's a brief touch to her waist as the fondness is returned. With contact made to her own cheek, no less.

"Merry Christmas. What's this?" He touches her ear as she withdraws, and glances to her leg. "And your foot, what the fuck happened?" He looks irritated, as if her being hurt were somehow an insult to him. Or, more likely, that he's only finding out about it now. "Yeah, he lives a couple of miles that way. Don't try to change the subject." An arm's offered, and he goes to open the door for her.

Loose tresses tangle into his fingers at the touch on her ear; some of the pain has abated, so she doesn't wince when he touches it so gently. And then, there's that face she makes, when she's about to get stubborn, but with the irritation on his expression, Isabella lets it fade in the backburner. Favoring a smile, instead, and always happy to see him, she accepts the arm, and the moment she anchors herself with his grip, relief washes off her features when he makes it easier for her to move.

"Them happened," she tells him quietly. "Or at least, I think so, anyway. Alexander, me and a few others got pulled in this really bad game where we had to reach the center of some snowy tundra before we got eaten, or froze to death. There was nothing but footprints to guide us - I think there were eight of us? Nine? But we were all separated. Those running the game penalized you if you used your gifts, and I knew right away we had to get to the middle in order to be safe, so I got to the center first and once I got there, I figured I didn't have to play by Their rules anymore. Lilith was stuck and she was one of the furthest out, so I had to try and help her. I got nailed in the foot and the face for my trouble, but I got her free and that's all that matters. I'm essentially deaf at the moment because birds came on top of it, shrieking very loudly and since I've started becoming more...sensitive...it hit me the hardest." All summarized with a determined, almost defiant look. She would do it all over again if she had to. "We all survived it, but...I think all of us are suffering from some interminable cold. We feel freezing no matter how warm the place is. It hasn't gone away yet."

Venturing inside increases that sense of relief. The touch of warmth within bleeds over her cold cheeks - it helps, but only a little. "What about you, Javier?" she wonders, her own eyes turning to his hard profile. "How are you? I haven't heard from you in a bit, not after the snowball fight and...." And her face grows faintly blank. "I...think...we went to the Asylum together...?"

As she explains what happened, he can't help but smile a little at the temerity in her voice. The spitfire he knows so well, that calls to his own ferocious spirit. The door's held, his houseguest ushered through, and then he releases her with a nod toward the couch. It's a dark leather affair, slung with what looks like a pale wool throw. Boxes are stacked against the wall, with his belongings in some partial state of being unpacked and distributed throughout the house. No television, though there's a laptop opened up atop one of the sturdier boxes, which is being used like a table. He's also laid out a couple of hunting rifles on the kitchen table, and his department-issued sidearm rests beside them. All unloaded. The house itself smells like tortilla soup, which is probably unsurprising given the pot of it simmering on the stove.

"Was this the same Dream that Finch and her boyfriend were pulled into?" he wants to know, going to rummage around for bowls and spoons. As to the Asylum, he frowns slightly. His reply comes after a long pause: "I'm... not entirely sure."

His smile bolsters that determined look, but this time she flashes him that dangerous, razored smile that speaks to both her youth and reckless determination to bash herself against insurmountable obstacles to see whose stubbornness wins out. At the nod to the couch, Isabella slowly sinks into it, setting the gift she had brought him on the table. There's an appraising look over the interior, a quiet whistle. "It looks really nice," she tells him, and by her voice, she means it. "All I've ever seen in my adult life after leaving home are tiny studios and apartments. Until the last couple of weeks or so anyway, I've been staying with Alexander. Do you need help unpacking?" Because of course she would ask, as if she hadn't just limped inside of his home. Besides, they're just boxes!

There's also a deep whiff at the scent of homemade tortilla soup. "I knew you could cook, but I think this is the first time I've been in breathing distance of something you made," she confesses.

She sets the crutch to the side, and removes only some of her gear. The gloves leave her, as well as the knit cap and her scarf. "I think so, she was off in a bad way, also, she was trying to help her boyfriend throughout. I didn't know the two of you knew one another." With the faded response on the Asylum, she glances at the table with a frown. "I was doing some digging on it, I met an ex-Navy officer recently, from Georgia, who was once a patient there - he has a boat so I guess I looked pitiful enough to come and help out. But he ended up telling me about how...thinking about the Asylum corrupts your other memories, so he tries not to think about it - he's too scared to think about it for too long. And then I talked to someone else who worked there, and she told me that the place wants to be forgotten. I tried convincing Alexander..." Her face tightens visibly. "...that perhaps we ought to leave it alone, but he promised Violet to locate Alice, and that's that. So...there might be some correlation, with that and us...not being able to remember the trip clearly."

She reaches out to touch the ribbon attached to his gift. "...ever since we came back from it, I keep hearing a clock, ticking inside my head. I think it means something...I haven't figured it out just yet. But I will."

"I don't." Need help moving. "But thanks. You should be recuperating, anyway." Of course she has to ask. And of course he turns her down; they're both far too proud for their own good. And there's that protective streak in him to contend with, too; like hell he'll accept help from his injured friend.

A couple of bowls are procured finally. Plain, the sort one might pick up from IKEA. Spoons are clattered onto the counter, and soup ladled into each bowl, followed by a sprinkle of fried and crumbled tortilla. It's a while before he speaks again, and he seems to consider his next words very carefully. She knows what an intensely private man he is. "She's my daughter." The resemblance, in retrospect, may seem obvious. The eyes. The attitude. That look they both get when they're about to do something very, very stupid.

The bowls are brought over to the couch, and one of them handed off to Isabella before he settles in beside her. Then she's talking about some ex-Navy officer from Georgia.. and he nearly chokes on his soup. "Oh?" is all he manages to that. The gift, for now, is noted but left alone.

They are, too proud for their own good. It causes no small measure of frustration with everyone else around them, and with each other, but in spite of the friction that produces, somehow, she remains a presence in his life, and he keeps a place in hers - proof positive, in the end, that stubbornness will always win out there. "I know, but it's not as if it's difficult, and if I'm bored, I get into trouble." Isabella's smile shifts to a more mischievous bent. "Really, you'd be doing me a favor." It's the Reede family motto; the fact that she's a Baxter on top of it makes the addage doubly, distressingly true.

In the end, she knows better than to press it. She's about to say something further about the soup, but the rest of it dies on the vine at the quiet confession from the police captain. At first, it's incomprehensible and he'd see it, the drawing down of her brows, wondering if she had misheard him - she knows of Karin, the son he had lost. She was certain the child was a boy. But a daughter...?

It clicks; it doesn't take her long - not just the memories of Finch's involvement, but the expression on her face when she gripped her hand and clung to the archway. Lips part in astonishment - she looked few years younger than her, at least, but the resemblance, now that he has pointed it out, is uncanny.

"...how did you find out?" she asks, quietly, holy shit writ large on her expressive, sunkissed face, reaching up with both hands to cup the bowl and spoon he hands her, cradling it securely in her grip. But her eyes are fixed on his dark profile, attempting to parse this latest development - she assumes it is recent, otherwise he would have mentioned losing a daughter, also. She leaves the topic of Joseph for the moment.

No further comment is made on the subject of helping him unpack. Though the mischief is not missed at all, and the flash of a smile he gives her suggests that, yes, he's aware of the trouble she's liable to get into. But he's still not going to indulge her.

Another spoonful of soup, slurped from the spoon noisily, his dark eyes cast down. "She walked into my fucking office and told me." His office. At work. He was on duty when she told him, and that must have been a sight to behold. "It's a.." Long story? Well, not really. "I met her mother at a pre-deployment party. While I was serving with the Marines. I, ah.. we took precautions, but." But life had other plans for him. "Anyway, this officer you met. Don't suppose his name's Cavanaugh? Joe Cavanaugh?" There's a strain of something in his voice that's.. well, difficult to discern.

"Javier, I..." Sorry, captain, give her a moment, she's still attempting to parse what just happened, and what he's told her, the astonishment on Isabella's face so terribly apparent that out of all the expressions he's seen on her features, of which there are numerous, this is one that he hasn't seen before. She looks absolutely, utterly speechless - and considering the fact that she has been trying to make more of an effort to be less of a heel with other people's feelings, she is doing her best to place herself in Ruiz's shoes when he describes just precisely how it happened.

Her imagination turns it over, at the idea of a secret offspring simply walking into her place of work and informing her...she blanches. "I can't even...that must've been a....revelation." The last is said awkwardly, because it's not the word she would use. Shocking is definitely a contender. "Are the two of you...getting along? The two of you seem connected." Otherwise he wouldn't have known about the Dream in the first place.

She blows at the soup, and dips her spoon in it. Javier must be batting a thousand today, because another unmistakable look of surprise falls over her. "...yes, that's his name. Joe Cavanaugh. Ex-Navy. He helped me back to my houseboat when I stopped by there for a few things, we got to talking because Dad was also in the Navy and...he told me about his wreck, and his late onset of the Talent after a year in rehab." She searches the man's expression, quietly. "Why?" she wonders. "What is it?"

"We're getting along." That's what he chooses to respond to, because the rest of it.. well, what can he say? That must have been a revelation. Well, no shit, Sherlock. And the look on her face? Well, that's studiously ignored as he deliberately spoons soup into his mouth with a tink of the spoon against the bowl, and the muted thrum of wood burning in the stove that sits near the centre of the room. Its fluted chimney exits the a-frame's roof, expelling smoke into the chill air.

Then Isabella confirms the name he'd suspected, and the man's brows knit together slightly. He dips his spoon, slurps, swallows, thinks. Finally, "Nothing." Never in the history of nothing has it ever been employed in such a brazen lie.

Some of the tension winds out of her when he tells her that they're getting along. Isabella observing him intently as he continues eating his soup. After a moment, she slowly shifts, to delicately extend an arm and, if he allows, wind it across his back in a gentle, one-armed embrace. The side of her bruised cheek finds the hard curve of his shoulder, if he lets her get close enough, the dark spill of her wavy hair draping against his sleeve.

"You've been through a lot this year," she tells him quietly - it might be obvious to many, but with these words, she lets him know that she has noticed, but has not said anything, unwilling most days to impose herself through his barriers because she knows what it is like. "I know I'm...not...the best. At this. We're similar that way. But I hope that her discovery is more of a balm than pain."

Gradually, however, she withdraws, straightening so she can take a proper taste of his soup once it's cool enough, and he'd find her appreciate it with her entire being, forever a creature who constantly, willingly, enslaves herself to the whims of her senses; the colors, the look of it, the scent of it and how the explosion of flavor plays over her tongue. "Oh, god, Javier, this is amazing." Open and unashamed admiration, after the added crunch of those fried tortilla fragments. She eagerly takes another bite of her soup, and another. She's young, who regularly engages in physical activity - she has an incredible appetite.

After her moment of delighted savoring, her eyes move to the side of his face. "That didn't look like nothing," she observes.

He chances, eventually, a flick of his dark eyes to find her near-incandescent green-golds, and there's a stitch of tension in his frame when she leans in. Just for a fragment of a moment, like a visceral reflex drummed into him by a life that's held more than its fair share of violence. A tic in his jaw when her arm slings around him, and it becomes a smile a moment later. Soft webwork of lines that fan out from the corners of his eyes, and he spoons more soup to his mouth. Once he's swallowed again, voice low, "Todos tenemos, querida." We all have.

"I'm glad you like it," he confides quietly. It's made more in the traditional style, without the bevy of toppings Americans tend to favour. But it's hot, and it suits this weather. Of Cavanaugh, "He's an old.." Not a friend, that's clearly not right. "We served together in Afghanistan. I knew he was in town, washed up on that pretentious fucking boat of his. What's he want with the Asylum? Keen to go back?" There's definitely something with those two; he can barely hide it.

"You weather it well," Isabella tells him with a quieter smile. "Like I told you before, a nuclear holocaust can happen tomorrow, and we'll all be dead and gone, but you'll still be around with five cockroaches." She winks at him teasingly there. "I just wish you'd catch a break, sometimes, is all. Hopefully this is a start...a new place and newly discovered family."

Comrades, too, it seems. "It's delicious," she reiterates, and before she knows it, half the bowl is already gone, and the simplicity of the dish, the tradition behind it, perhaps speaks more to a woman who studies and holds a continuous love and fascination for ancient cultures. All the while, however, she searches the man's expressions, mentally charting these new terrains over his personal map, the colors of his portrait within her endless galleries ever changing.

"I was told he wanted to go there, but I don't know whether it's to go back. Largely I think...he's desperate to figure out what's happening to him. Why he suddenly has what you and I have. Advice, training - some lead into the research. I referred him to a doctor, offered Vivian's number, if he needs a psychiatrist." These emanations ping through her newfound, internal senses like homing missiles, however, and she can't help but pick it up especially when they radiate with a certain tension from his frame, like piano wire tugged taut, on the verge of snapping and cutting flesh. "Is he going to be a problem?" she wonders.

Laughter from the man, a low rumble made slightly husky, smoke-roughened by too many decades of abusing his body. "Lo capeo porque debo hacerlo," he murmurs to her, distracted for a moment as if by some passing thought that her words reminded him of. Then he finishes off his soup, tipping the bowl slightly to fill his spoon the last sip or two, and sets both aside on the low coffee table opposite the couch. It looks like it might be hand-built, out of some manner of reclaimed wood. "Thank you," for the compliment on his cooking.

"I've heard good things about Dr. Glass," he'll demur after a moment. "I hope she's able to help him." He eases back into the couch cushions with a huff of breath through his nose, knees splayed apart in that typical space-eating sprawl that he has. "Hmm? A problem?" He watches her watch him, and she'd likely do well to remember in times such as these that he's a reader of no small skill, possessed of the same ability that Alexander has to pick up on things that he rightfully shouldn't; and mask the same. "No," he supplies finally, evenly. "I don't think so."

His laughter earns him one of those glowing smiles, pushing out the secret dimple on her left cheek; it's rare that she hears him laugh, but in many ways, it is the fact that it is that makes it more valuable when she actually draws it out of him. While most of the Spanish slips past her, she can catch the meaning clearly enough, and she finishes the soup with relish and sets it down on the table. "If anything, I should be thanking you for giving me a chance to sample your cooking. I had no idea you were talented here, also," Isabella confesses unabashedly, turning her gaze to the pot on the stove. "Would you mind too terribly if I packed up a bowl to take to Alexander when I head home? He'd probably enjoy it also, and he's got the same unnatural chill I've got. Soup would probably be something he'd appreciate for tonight."

She does this effortlessly and demonstrates it without shame; how a part of her mind is always taken up by someone else's presence and unlike Ruiz, she is no talented reader - she has absolutely no desire to be, so these wisps of emotion are easily detected. They're difficult to suppress, even if she had the inclination; her interior landscape is savagely powered by the nuclear-grade core she houses within the seat of her soul, hints of the true depths of all of its immolating white heat...that intense, terrifying and obsessive passion that she holds for the man in question, so much so that she burns like a star while sitting next to him, growing brighter the more she speaks. All in the hopeful look that she sends Javier's way when she makes this simple request.

"I hope so, too, about Dr. Glass," she confesses gently, and when he confirms, at least, that Joseph is not going to be a problem, there's a faint unspooling of a growing tension around her shoulders, the earlier thought of having perhaps assisted the wrong person bleeding away. She seems content with that, respecting the man's reticence to talk about it - for now. So long as he is in no immediate danger. Instead, she reaches out for the gift on the table, and presents it to him.

"I hope you like it," she says simply. "My mother told me that a gift should reflect something of both the giver and the receiver, so I tried my best. She..." Her expression softens. "This was her favorite time of year."

"Talented?" He scoffs quietly at that, eyes creasing at the corners with his self-deprecating amusement, and perhaps something else as he watches her. Keying into her preoccupation with a certain person; a chuckle follows, low and warm. "I don't mind at all." If she packs up a bowl. "I've got some.. what the fuck's it called. Something-ware." Tupperware, Javier. He closes his hand over her thigh, gives it a quick squeeze, and is about to push off to go hunt down said tupperware.. when she presents him with her gift.

"I didn't buy you anything," he protests, the look on his face chagrined. Nevertheless, after a long moment's consideration, he reaches for it, plucks at the wrapping, if there is any.

Something-ware.

"Ziploc?" Isabella teases, though the last syllable leaves her in a yelp and a laugh when he squeezes her thigh, attempting to smother it the moment the sound comes out - which in the end leaves her sounding choked. There are faint traces of embarrassment on her; she's ticklish, but not the kind to admit to it upon pain of death - wild horses will drag it out of her first. She clears her throat and looks sideways in an attempt to fix his attention elsewhere. "I think after mounting some shelves, some art, this could really look like home," she tells him.

His protests has that familiar stubborn look angled his way. "I wasn't aware that gift-giving was required to be transactional," she tells him lightly, nudging her shoulder with his. "Oh, come on, Javier. It's Christmas! And you just got a new place, consider it a housewarming present, too. Plus I really want to see if you like it."

There is no wrapping save for the ribbon on top; whatever it is has some heft, and hidden within gauzy layers of tissue paper inside a store-bought gift bag, because unlike most of the people in her life, she can't make anyone anything to save her life, and any attempts at gift-wrapping her own presents will probably result in some Lovecraftian disaster that would drive a person mad after any attempt to unwrap it. What he does find in the end is a leather-bound volume, its title embossed in silver calligraphy against black - El Cantar de Mio Cid, or The Poem of The Cid, the only epic that managed to survive the tumultuous times of Medieval Spain. If he cracks the pages open, he would find it in both medieval Spanish and its more modern counterpart, verses printed side by side.

"Did I fucking say ziploc?" His abrasiveness is mostly bark rather than bite, as evidenced by the complete lack of hackles when he says it. "And no, I'm not saying it needs to be transactional, but.." His brows furrow a little when she oh come ons him. And, grumbling, he starts to pull the tissue free until he reaches whatever's at the bottom of the bag. Which reveals itself to be a book. And he stills for a long moment before reaching for it. A touch along the spine, and then it's lifted out of the bag and into his lap. Crack as he opens it up.

Cantar del Destierro, it begins, and his mouth twitches once, twice, before forming a smile that creases the corners of his eyes. "Es hermoso." His eyes flick back up to regard the woman beside him, studying her profile for a long, long while. "Nunca he.." A breath. "Gracias." Then, if she permits, he slings his arm around her for a hard, warm embrace that smells like cigarettes and gunsmoke with a hint of orange.

Did I fucking say ziploc?

"Nope," Isabella quips, that mischievous grin resurfacing, her laughter playing minuets with the devil present in green irises shot with gold.

She falls silent when he finally gets to the present, and his long pause in discovering it has her shifting restlessly on the couch, wondering if she had somehow made another misstep. "I...wouldn't have known that you were a poet, or an aficionado, if you hadn't told me what you did the day Alexander introduced us," she tells him - her memories extend quite far, and especially for the people she cares about, she can recount almost every moment exchanged between herself and them with crystal clarity. She is far from an eidetiker, she doesn't boast a photographic memory like Anne Washburn, but whatever remains of her sundered heart acts like a mirror well enough, when it comes to the ones she calls her own, however privately. "I thought it was just something you knew from heart, until the funeral. Um. Is...do you...?"

And she continues babbling, because she's terrible with feelings - like him (and she is so much like him), she is more comfortable with deed than word and she attempts to fill the silence with what she has discovered about the work in his hands. "Scholars date its composition from around 1140 to 1207," she tells him enthusiastically. "In the area of old Castille. It's not as if I could get you the actual original manuscript, or anything, so I hope a reprint is okay. It's based on the true story of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, and...I honestly don't know a lot about of poetry, but when I was doing some research on what I should try and get everyone, it just-- "

She falls silent at his quiet words, shutting her jaw with a click, and then his arm comes around her. His hard embrace has her wrapping her arms around him, returning his strength with her more meager own, the familiar sting of his cigarettes spiced with cordite and citrus finding her nose.

After a pause, she continues, hanging on for dear life. "I...made you a promise. In the range. After my mother..." She swallows. "...oh, Javier. I don't know if I can keep it. Not now. I'm sorry."

It's probably fairly safe to say that Javier doesn't remember what he told her he did, the day Alexander introduced them; his expression looks by turns curious and perplexed. "Do I..?" He helpfully prompts her to finish her unfinished question. Then glances back to the book on his lap, skims the current page with his fingertips, closes it up with another crackle of the spine. "Isabella, I.." He what. "Of course a reprint is all right." Laughter, low and husky and warm, filters into her hair with the embrace. And then that soft, temerous entreaty that she makes to him, and his eyes close, and he pulls her tighter to his solid, stalwart warmth. Like a furnace, this man. "Esta todo bien. Lo se. Entiendo, Isabella." EE-sah-bella. "Shhh. Entiendo."

"Because original manuscripts always belong in a museum and-- "

It's his low laughter that makes her babbling (and her related, growing mortification) worth it, pressed against her hair. It isn't often that Isabella allows herself to be held - outside of Alexander, these tokens are often brief, and normally limited to a chosen few, like Byron Thorne, her closest friend in Gray Harbor. Today, Javier's warm solidity lulls her to accepting it wholeheartedly, and the way he anchors her has her fists bunching somewhere behind him, blinking back sudden, stinging, traitorous heat. She doesn't know what he's saying to her, only able to grasp bits and pieces of it due to the language's Latin base, but his tone and the Spanish inflection of her name has her squeezing her eyes shut, pressing her cheek into where his neck meets his shoulder. For several moments, she silently grieves over and marvels at his accumulated hurts, and succumbs to her own.

The silence seems endless, save for the quiet tapping of pine branches against nearby windows. When she speaks, finally, it's a quiet, helpless question and one that makes her sound so much younger than her twenty-seven years. "Is devotion a curse?" she whispers; after all, who would know best but a poet?

Because she doesn't know how else to be, and some part of her knows that he would know better than she ever could.

They are such complex creatures, the two of them. Fierce yet fragile; incandescent yet with darkness in their heart of hearts. Javier settles into the silence without complaint, his breathing a slow, even rasp; his rough fingers brushed through her hair, and catching on it here and there. Powder-fine snow crystals pepper the window with each gust of wind that paints the glass with the pine branches, and after a time he speaks again.

Low, barely audible, in a scratchy-warm murmur pitched close to her ear, "Is the ocean, to the shore?" Just that. And then she can feel him swallow, and release her with an unwinding of fingers and guttering of his breath like a candle burning low. "I should go and refill the stove." The wood-burning one that keeps the house warm.

Is the ocean, to the shore?

Lashes lift at that, taking the words to heart and the answer buried within so many artistic syllables. Isabella draws away once his arms loosen around her, blinking back incriminating moisture clinging to her lashes. Whatever chastisement or vehemence she may have expected from him hadn't come and really, she half-expected him to escort her to the city limits of Gray Harbor, himself, after the funeral had ended. But while that realization comes with no small measure of relief, she's unable to keep from wondering what it means. The two of them could go, could sail as far away from here as they could, and return to the sea; listen to the call of their blood and deny Gray Harbor of two more souls to feed upon.

And yet...

"Okay," she says with a smile - and at the very least, there is nothing melancholy about it. She does shift from the couch to stand up, so she could follow him with a limping gait towards the kitchen. "I'll help pack up the soup for Alexander. And..." She laughs, her mischief returning. "I hope this means you liked the gift. I really need to learn Spanish."