OPEN | prompt two | LOVE

[wrens]

prompt two | L O V E And what you can never know from the beginning is how hard or how long you'll love something; how even when it is gone the love will chase you down, loping like dark flame through your blood. — Some lies are love. — Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future. The ruin you've made.

 

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❝I was honest for a few weeks while you loved me.❞ // MONEYPENNY // PRE-CANON

[signatures]

[barbette]

[ She makes her way home from the den and her ribs feel bruised beneath all of her clothes even though nobody's touched her. That's some crazy headfuckery right there if she stops to think about it — which she doesn't and she won't for still a long time coming. The competition here in Bangkok is brutal and all the dreamers in the makeshift arenas are desperate guttersnipes with hyperactive imaginations and not a penny to their name, fighting under this sponsor's banner or that in the hopes of scraping together a bit of a coin. It makes Moneypenny think of cockfighting and all those scrawny desperate animals snapped up in shanty cages.

And what does that make her? She doesn't know yet, but there's a new wad of cash burning a hole in pocket that hadn't been there an hour ago.

When she reaches the barebones apartment she's called home for the past two weeks, the lights are on and the doors bolted shut. The chain snaps to life as she nudges the door open with her foot, peering inside through the crack.

"Oi," she calls inside. Normally she'd just break her own way in, but her body protests at the thought.

[oceansjoy]

I don't think I'll ever fall in love.

[landlocks]

[ He kneels down and taps her on the nose. ]

Hey, now. You never know.

❝ think you might be selling yourself short on this one ❞ | cary | universalis

[thunderclap]

[ She excuses herself after they've been approached by the hostess and shown to the far-edge of the dining room. The bar in the restaurant is tastefully done — chrome and black leather and sleek lines — and the main room is a continuation of that, though with less metal and considerably more slate and stone. Their table is situated along the wide stretch of windows that take up the far side of the space and look out onto the busy city street beyond. It's raining and so their view is spattered and wet, the diners running back and forth along the sidewalk from awning to awning or from awning to cab or from awning to curb (the unlucky ones who have to walk).

Cherry sets her drink down, only half sipped from their time waiting in the bar, but doesn't sit when Cary offers an open chair to her. ]

Not too much to ask for a lady to powder her nose, is it, sailor? [ She pats his hand on the back of her chair. ]

[factual]

[ Cary responds the way that he always does: with a smile and the barest duck of a nod. (Well, the way that he always does with Cherry Darling. He's always perfectly polite, yes, but he takes a few extra steps for those that he cares for, and, as it happens, she's one of them. She gets the knowing glance, the fleeting smile, little things that are hard to grasp but, at the end of the day, add up to more than he'd necessarily outright admit.)

He smiles, nods, and lets his hand slip from the back of the chair, stepping around the table to pull out his own chair. ]

Not too much at all.

OPEN to ANYONE | all verses

[eyetooth]

I fell in love once. [ A pause, thinking back, her eyes growing thoughtful and intent as she does. ] It didn't end well.

[voda]

[ For a moment, Vodka appears to mull over the words, and when he speaks, it sounds as if each word has been carefully picked out. ] It seems it rarely does, these days.

Open to anyone | Seraphim Dias, Throne of God

[majestyofthethrone]

[written on a slate that's tied around her wrist]

God loves everything, but he doesn't always do it kindly.

SERAPHIM MEET THE DEVIL'S BEST FRIEND.

[befallen]

[ Esther watches patiently, her expression even and her voice matter-of-fact when she asks: ]

And was he being cruel or kind when he loved the Devil?

OPEN to ANYONE | all verses, all canons

[wont]

[ She has a guarded look to her. Large blue eyes and dark brown hair, the color of mud; Petyr Baelish's words in her mouth. ]

Some lies are love.

ARGH I HAVE TO GO SLEEP BUT HERE

[wolfinthesnow]

No lies are love.

[He has an older look to him, a commanding one]

open to all!

[tapes]

Love is stronger than evil. But from time to time, evil seems to get the best of it, anyway.

[pare]

[ She laughs a thick sort of ugly laugh and wipes at the side of her mouth with the back of her hand, as if to stop the sound like blood seeping from a wound. ]

And what if it's both—?

❝ we were friends for a long time. ❞ | terminus | universalis

[regain]

[ It's complicated and something Danielle likes to pretend that the only time she ever was in love with Terminus was when she was young and naive. Greek myth always said there were a few mortals who were deified, and maybe, just maybe, if she took care of him enough, she'd somehow become one of them. That was years ago, though, and Danielle is older, wiser, a master minder when she used to be a lowly apprentice, she thinks she's grown out of believing in that delusion. She may love a god with her whole heart, but there will come a time when she dies and he continues to live. Continues to be watched by others, by her apprentice. And he'll forget about her. That's how it's supposed to work, at least she thinks that's the case.

(She's older but she hasn't let go of that dream. Let go of that love. She just let's it sit deeper away from the surface. No use in hurting him or straining their friendship.)

She's on the couch near him, feet in his lap without a hint of shame. She may have forced him to watch a film she chose (When Harry Met Sally, always one she both loves and hates, and one she always feels bad about making him watch) but she suspects he doesn't mind. She could ask him if she's right endlessly and his answer will always be yes. ]

Why do you always let me watch this?

[bounds]

[ It's complicated but to Terminus' credit, that never keeps him from love. He is a god that, by dominion, is ruled by practicality and rules but over time he's learned the strength found in loopholes — both on paper and in the heart. Danielle will die and Rommy after that and whomever Rommy's apprentice will be after that as well; but Terminus knows that he will remember each of them, will apportion some part of himself in memorialization of them, like indelible records untouched by time. (It's like love and it's not.)

His hands rest over the curve of one her bare feet and, every so often, he absently messages the ball of his thumb against the arch of her sole. It's a movie he's seen plenty of times before but whenever she asks, he never says no. (He feels he owes her as much.) Terminus shrugs, his head canting to one side, his voice light. ]

Because you ask so nicely? And because you brought home the Miller case with flying colors so I couldn't be an asshole and say no.

❝ on the night i die i swear i'll sleep outside your window ❞ | francis | pre-incarceration

[inheritances]

[ There is a small package waiting for him in the mail when he returns home from work on Thursday afternoon. Not very large, small enough to sit in the hollow of his palm in fact, but heavy, like something quite important is hidden inside beneath all that brown paper and cardboard. There is no postage nor mailers mark, which means it had to have been delivered rather than sent and the handwriting on the address is familiar to Francis.

Perhaps he can place it if he tries. ]

[falsities]

[ He recognizes the handwriting. He recognizes it because he's kept every instance of it that he's been offered. Sal is sleeping (well, passed out in the armchair) by the time he makes it up to the apartment, so Francis spirits the tiny package out to the emergency stairwell, weighing it in one palm for a few moments before he tries to open it, pulling aside each leaf of brown paper as though he were handling flower petals instead. ]

❝ explore me, you said and i collected my ropes, flasks and maps ❞ | esther bloome | adventurers

[successes]

[ They're shipped to Morocco on a mission involving an off-the-books combover of Volubilis (one that might have them crossing wires with the IRAS, but the risk is one they're taking — the political climate in Morocco is better than it's been for a long while so they need to capitalize on the opportunity). HQ sets them up at Meknes, in a small two-room suite in an equally small, out of the way hotel. Threadbare rugs cover the floor, and the fans that hang from the ceiling sway with the chopping of their own blades.

From his place on his cot, Lewis stares up at one of the fans in question, eyes seeing but not seeing, gaze stock still despite the constant movement of the fan. It's been a while since he and Esther began working together (a while since Solomon died). There'd been skepticism at first, of course, of several varieties (he's only doing it because of Sol, for one, along with nastier rumors, the worst of which have died down), but he can't say that there's anything that he's come to regret, at least not in regards to their partnership. There's the matter of Rosa having left him, sure, but that's something that he's tried not to think about. It wasn't too bad of a split, as splits go.

At the first noise, Lew seems to come back down to earth, blinking once before shifting upright, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot. ]

Hey.

[ It's a short, simple greeting, but good enough. ]

[compartmentalize]

[ The door opens to the suite and a warm sirocco wind kicks up along the slatted wooden floor, bringing in some of the dust from outside along with it and an equally dusty Esther in tow. There are places in the world they've been where it's unsafe for a woman like her to travel alone after dark — cities that are wartorn or ARCG-unfriendly or that have very vehemently held beliefs on the nature of women, especially young widows. Meknes, on occasion, is all of the above but they're lucky enough this time to have a hotel with a small garden outback. It's Esther's custom whenever they travel to take a few moments alone every day before retiring; a custom which Lewis acknowledges, respects and encourages (it's not pity, not even the rough outline of it, and it makes her all the more grateful for him and his company, no matter what the rumor mill says).

She takes the time to consider the day, to reorganize and prioritize the things that she's learned or needs to revisit. She refocuses, winds down, takes stock of what she has and how those things are lesser or worse than they were the day before. Sometimes, if she's feeling particularly nostalgic of masochistic, she uses that time to think about Sol. The last conversation he had, the shirt he was wearing when she said goodbye at the airport; Esther no longer remembers what he had smelled like, but she recalls that it was masculine and warm, but bright as well (pine maybe, fir). According to her passport, she's still Esther Bloome but that's a fact that's about to change and quite soon. It's a thought that's been distracting her lately and, if Lewis has been paying attention (he always does), it's probably made itself apparent — a distant gaze at nothing in particular, the absent touch of a hand to the old ring she wears on a chain around her neck.

Today, instead of invigorated and calm the way she normally seems upon her return to the suite, Esther looks a little more tired than usual, though her brow remains smooth and her mouth measured and even in its line.

With a hand she brushes a little dirt from the knees of her pants and moves across the small space towards the bathroom, though Esther doesn't enter, just lingers in the darkened doorway, a hand poised on the switch inside. ]

Hey yourself. [ A pause and then: ] I thought you'd be sleeping.

❝ it is the color of love. ❞ | kent | adventurers

[reproduced]

[ When she knows she'll see him, she wears red. It's the color of love (not technically, the true one for their- her love for him is his favorite color, but it will do for now) and she thinks that wearing it will proclaim her love better than anything else might. Antoinette is good at telling lies both through art and with her own mouth. To speak the truth, to simply say, I love you more and more each day is hard. It's harder than learning how to walk or how to speak or how to do anything she knows.

It scares her, so she implies it. It's safer that way. Perhaps he won't ask about the color. It's just an innocent choice. (She's an artist, her color choices always mean something.) She wants him to notice and comment, but at the same time, living in her careful bubble of feelings she won't say aloud (her sketches speak volumes) is far better than perhaps losing him forever.

She's decked in all red today, right down to fake rubies in her ears. (I desperately love you, please love me too.) Perhaps he has time for lunch today for the two of them. ]

Hi.

[functions]

[ The principle of constancy is one that's rare in Kent's life. Arguably, it hadn't even been present until he'd signed on with the ARCG. True, he still never stays in one place long, but there are anchors, now, and one of those anchors happens to be in the form of Antoinette Everett. And as much as he usually hates anything that means simply up and leaving if necessary won't be a possibility, in this case he can't find it in himself to complain. Instead, he takes what opportunities he can get to drop by under one pretext or another, for reasons that he hasn't yet allowed himself the time nor space to puzzle out.

When he spots her, he smiles, the reaction now a knee-jerk reaction as opposed to feigned politeness. ]

Hey. [ A beat. ] It's nice to see you.

[ Another beat, the silence this time punctuated by a twitch of his lips — the brief threat that that smile might grow any wider. ]

Red's a good color on you.

[ So maybe it's a lie that he hasn't taken the time to think about it, maybe he's already figured out what it means that he takes the time to see her where their paths might not ordinarily cross. But it doesn't mean he's any better at being up front about it. ]

❝ you have bewitched me, body and soul. ❞ | hallah | pre-decommisioning

[telephones]

[ Had Ian been a man who believed in witches, he would assme this was a spell designed to make him desire a person above all others. He's not that type though, and knows this is no spell. No, it is merely his own heart, crying out for the one he finds that he loves more and more with each passing minute.

Dealing with it is as complicated as the woman he loves herself. He is tired of pretending, tired of acting like having sex with her would kill him. Kill her, really. Perhaps that means it is time for a confession. Hallah will find a note attached to her laptop written in his familiar scrawl, with a few simple words:

Come take a walk with me.

He'll wait until she decides whether or not to go. He has time for now. ]

[wiretap]

[ She's in the shower when he leaves the note — one of the few instances during which Aberdeen can be safely found away from her laptop. She's toweling her hair dry when she finds it; he's in the kitchen, waiting for her patiently and attempting to make coffee in the meantime (it'd been a late night for the both of them and, same as always, Aberdeen had been loathe to sleep). When Aberdeen comes to find him a few moments later, she's still naked and her skin is still damp from her shower.

Her barefeet leave wet footprints on the linoleum floor as she approaches, her towel still held loosely in one hand (it never occurs to her to cover herself up in the process). ]

A walk.

[ Aberdeen's voice is low and cautious, though somehow still flat in its delivery. ]

❝ i did promise. ❞ | bb!arthur | pre-canon

[minds]

[ Dom frowns. She glances up, just once, before she ducks her head again, eyes skating over the directions written on the back of that small box of hairdye. ]

I don't know. Love feels like— [ She waves a hand. It's not dismissive, but it's not concerned about details either. ] There's more important things.

[halfwindsor]

[ Arthur exhales and it's a sound they're both used to by now. A healthy mix (or is it unhealthy) of exasperation and fondness, of patience and resignation. He's never been good at expressing certain things but he and Dom have known one another long enough for some certain things to not need expressing at all. (The remainder never get talked about or acknowledged and perhaps that's best for them; Arthur thinks so.)

There's a pair of filmsy plastic gloves on the counter. For the time being Dom's spared his dignity long enough to not insist he wear them straight away but Arthur glances at them reproachfully over his shoulder anyway.

His tone is skeptical. ] Such as—? [ A beat and he's interrupting her, cutting off certain routes of conversational escape before she manages to take them. ] And don't say 'the dream'.

'The dream's cheating.

❝ we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love. ❞ | julia | universalis

[mendacity]

[ If you ask Edgar, he is incapable of love. He lies and lies and quite frankly has to wonder if ever can tell the truth any more. It's not the basis for loving someone. But deep down in his heart, he feels something for Julia. Maybe it's because of her powers or maybe it's because she doesn't mind that he lies, but he does. Like her. Or love her. It's complicated.

He pretends he doesn't though, because that's how it's supposed to work. When you love someone you're not supposed to lie, but Edgar loves lying more than a great deal many things. So he'll tell himself a lie. (I do not care for Julia Caldwell.) And he'll believe it (mostly).

It's one of their drinking outings to celebrate a job well done and that little voice inside Edgar asks him if he really thinks he can decieve himself forever. He thinks he can, after all, why would he be honest with himself? A lie from him is always better than the truth. ]

[awes]

[ She's waiting for him at the bar. As soon as he appears, she seems to light up, a grin spreading across her face as she turns, one elbow upon the bar counter. ]

About time, [ she tells him, mock chiding. ] And there I was beginning to think you might never show up.

[ If you ask Julia, there's no one completely incapable of love. It's a silly concept, maybe, found mainly in storybooks and the minds of the naive, but it's not an impossibility. One just has to be careful about whom one chooses to shower one's affections upon. And in Julia's case, at least, she doesn't think she's going to come across a better choice. The fact that she cares for Edgar isn't one that she's lingered on; rather, she's acknowledged it and kept moving, unwilling to let it slow her down or rock the boat too much. (It's a little easier for her, maybe, considering the difference in their respective powers. He lies, and so does she, but it isn't lying that falls under her jurisdiction. She seeks to impress, and there's nothing in that particular clause that says it can't be paired, at least in part, with love.) ]

First round is on me.

❝ winter is coming. ❞ | sansa | apocalypse!au

[wolven]

[ At night they come in hoards, massive and unrelenting and slaves to their hunger. In the day, they rot in the path of the sun, decayed and rancid flesh that does not move and does not crave. Hollywood calls them zombies but history knows them as White Walkers, and when a Stark thinks winter is coming it is not about the season; it is about long nights and short days and no-one (no thing) having enough to eat.

On the dawn of the fourteenth day, Robb flicks the safety back on his pistol and gently shakes his sister awake. ]

Sansa. Look— We've made it.

[swelter]

[ She dreams of a place long lost to them — a house with firm walls and a solid foundation, with eaves hearty enough and strong enough for adventurous young boys (much against their mother's wishes) to climb. It is a lovely place, or used to be, and when Sansa dreams of it, the rooms are on fire and in each and every room there is trapped someone she loves.

(Fire is a terrible way to die, but Sansa knows better now, has seen with her own eyes.)

In her dream, she is crying, scrambling up the front steps towards the shadows that writhe and dance in all the windows, their bodies alight. It isn't safe, but nowhere is now, not without home (Sansa, be wary) and before she can wrest the front door open, there are hands on her shoulders, pulling her back.

(No, keep me with you. Don't make me leave.)

When she startles awake a moment later, it is with both hands raised, pushing at Robb, as if he were one of the dead himself. ]

No—!

❝ arohanui. ❞ | LADIES CHOICE

[reinga]

Loving too much is dangerous.

[counterbalance]

But not loving enough— that's dangerous too.

[curassavica]

[rabblerouse]

[ Mostly its her who finds him — Mary the furious one, Mary the needy. And whenever she does, there's no telling which side of the coin will greet him (simpering kisses, nails and teeth), though this has never managed to persuade Gareth to be cautious, to tread lightly, to be kind. Amon would like him less if ever he did and he suspects that she'd be able to smell it on him like some pus-filled wound all gangrenous and festering, a betrayal of her gifts. He tempers it by hating Mary, hating her as vehemently and as forcefully as he loves her. She deserved it, didn't she, for making him weak, for making him human and wanting. That's what Gareth tells himself and, somehow, it makes the loving easier.

A Sunday afternoon and Amon sends him on an errand to Asmodeus. He considers waiting until he knows she isn't there but instead, ends up calling her and leaving a message on her voicemail. ]

Be there in ten.

[ That's all he says. Whether she loves him or hates him today — whether she shows — is up to her. ]

( but who could do without you? ) o p e n.

[vitalities]

[ She has a somewhat canine approach people; although she is effortlessly playful and energetic, she doesn't come too close unless something spells safety. She's wary, always on her toes, prepared to bare her teeth if things go awry, but once you have her trust, you have her. She won't be going anywhere fast. Adele has always been a girl that searches for and surrounds herself in people that she knows she can pull close to her heart, keep them there, shower them in affection and teases. Love, however, is another matter. She has a great deal of love for her little pack, a very dogged loyalty, but she's still young. Where she has done many things, she has experienced few.

She smiles, with a mixture of curiosity and disinterest. It's too soppy a topic for her to willingly discuss with much liveliness, something she assosicates with being adult, and settling down, and neither of these things she would necessary apply to herself. ]

Love is too serious for me- the sort of love where you fall into it, I mean, 'cause I love lots of things, in other ways.

[packs]

[ Charlene was never like Adele, not even when she was very young and very foolish. She had always had something of a wayward heart, but it hadn't been nearly as wild or as free. No, it was only in following the moon-swallower's shadow, in feeling her own hackles raise in the stiffening cold, did she find her own claws and her mouth full of teeth.

If Adele is a wolf bounding through an open field, then Charlene is the pack that binds wolves together in loyalty and survival — both dogged and true. ]

You can love somebody and not've fallen into it, [ she says, thoughtfully. With Gideon it had been a slow creep finally punctuated by a vicious pounce. Not nearly the same thing, by her estimation. ]

( if i could just let my guard slip ) o p e n.

[mercantile]

[ All Mally does is sniff, dismissive and unimpressed. She won't willingly comment on this, not without a little push, because experience and circumstances have made her bitter, and she's hardly afraid to hide it. She finds it hard to believe that other people are worth the trouble that love and other such notions cause. You just get rather grumpy and miserable when you don't have any. ]

[aside]

[ Oh love is truly nothing but trouble as far as Red is concerned, but trouble is something she's always had a taste for, even as the youngest of girls. Be mindful of the path, they'd told her. Stray too far and you'll be lost. But lost is a state of being that has never frightened Red and never will, not even if it kills her.

Being found meant being pinned into place — run through with expectations and boxed in by rules. Getting married had been a mistake but an adventure in its own right, however brief. But marriage, Red knows, is decidedly not love. Her marriage may try to kill her with tedium but if she dies, it will be both of love's hand wrapped tightly round her lily white throat, and she's fine with that.

When she speaks her voice is light and singsong, just bordering on condescending. ] Not a fan?

OPEN to ANYONE | all verses

[hewn]

Love hurts.

[hewed]

[ The laugh that Julian offers up is practically a bark. ] Oh, yeah. But that ain't bad, that ain't bad.

OPEN to ANYONE | all verses

[pithos]

Yes. Well. Not to be too on the nose about it, but— ah.

Love is hope, I would think. Brilliant and beautiful and — and very much effulgent. I rather like love — or rather, love love. And I rather love Hope as well, but again that's be being obvious I think.

[springseternal]

Love is hope.

Oh, you say the sweetest things.

OPEN to ANYONE | all verses

[aside]

And what a few weeks it was.

[ways]

Getting nostalgic, Red?

❝ do not weep. war is kind. ❞ | mack

[starve]

[ They cross paths in southern Africa. In the middle east, in pacific Asia, on the streets of Detroit. He's not nearly as welcome through parts of South America as he used to be, but where some semblance of civil rest settles overs some countries, conflict blossoms anew in others so in the end it balances out. (That's the point, after all: the balance.)

Whenever they find themselves in a place where some semblance of civility is available, they stop and chat and share a coffee. (Or rather, War has a coffee while Famine sits across from him and smirks.) Today there's a cafe but no patrons, half of the building's facade having been blown away by artillery fire in the night. No casualties in the conflict (not yet at least) but the War is still young and Famine is waiting her turn as blockades and embargos go up left and right, in the hopes of choking parts of the city and its bands of insurgents with threats of no food and little water.

Famine picks her way through the debris and then bends to pick up a stool, settling it upright again and wiping off the seat before hopping up onto it. ]

Guess coffee's out of the question, huh?

[ Truth be told, she likes it when they see one another. Mack's always been her favorite, though she's never told him or the others how or why. She suspects they all know, anyway, not that it matters; not that it makes any difference. ] I'll owe you one.

[slain]

[ Mack smiles, at that, the curve of his lips the only soft line among the sharp angles that comprise his features. He's seated at the counter, one elbow on the bartop and his legs neatly crossed, and he gently kicks at one of the legs of her stool as she sits down. (He likes these moments, for what they're worth. The times when they cross paths and, amidst that the ruin that they leave behind them, they find a little bit of quiet. That doesn't mean he doesn't love the thick of it – oh, he does, riding out with red on his face and the sort of terrible laugh that stops men in their tracks – but he loves this, too.) ]

Was it your turn, this time? [ he asks. It doesn't matter much, in the end, if it was or it wasn't. They'll meet again, and again and again until the end of days, and by that time it won't matter who owed who what. They'll have another job to do. ]

Kind of a pity, this place got blown out. I like the decor otherwise.

OPEN to ANYONE | all verses

[skrull]

That's sweet and everything, but I've got to say: kind of a worrying conditional. [ A beat, then his hands go up in a 'don't shoot me' sort of pose. ] Just putting that out there.

[zapfirst]

Remind me how you get the reputation as the romantic one again.

" I've made a mess of all things " | Hallah | The Order: Decomissioned

[castledown]

[Brandon hasn't driven this much in his life. He's spent more of his savings on gas in the last three months than he has his entire 34 years of life. There was always the train, always a plane, always a short enough distance that he could hop on his bike if need be. He found, not too long after he started scratching, picking at that scab that he could now identify as such, that planes and trains were out of the question. He had to move, had to find a flat somewhere else, take out as much cash as he could and move what he could as quickly as he could. He was being watched, he knew it the day he arrived back in York from Verona. He was a target, a threat, and it should have made him give up. He should have, by all of his logic, raised his hands in defeat and retreated back to his flat to fade into nothingness, but he couldn't. It was curiosity, it would always be curiosity that kills the historian.

And all of his friends, apparently.

Brandon glances at Hallah in the passengers seat of his car, the window open and blowing her hair against her face, and something aches deep in his chest. It's not that uncomfortable, ungraspable feeling of the scab deep inside his mind, not like the one that's bothered him enough to put his life on the line, but something far more real, a feeling of the ultimate present come to haunt him. It ached, it wanted to be grasped, it wanted to kicked repeatedly for its stupidity. He shouldn't have done this to her, put her in the line of fire by making her scratch too, and he knows it. He knows it and most of him regrets.

But not all of him. The part that holds her dear regrets nothing. It's the part of him that is so glad that he found her, so glad that she had realized that he was probably right and called him back, so glad that she could understand what he was going through. So glad to have her company. Even when she was slipping further out of the grasp he didn't even really have.

They had been going through her things, going through the scattered notes and oddities in her flat, piecing together names, locations, numbers as they had for him. It had brought them a name and a place. Dundee. Ian Malone. It had brought them a distant look in Hallah's eyes, the same look he knew he had when he found Alessandro, the man in Verona who refused to speak to him. That knowing look, deep under the wraps of a good clean scar.

He focuses his attention back on the road as they drive down to Dundee from Aberdeen, the radio churning out another damned pop song that sounded exactly like all the others. He's trying to focus, trying to remember that this is good. This is progress.]