Catching up

[Emily Littleton] Mid-afternoon and all's well. The lobby staff in Jarod's swank new building has been informed of Ms. Littleton's appointment so she does not have to cajole them, to pleasantly step side-ways around their appointed duties, to convince or elude. They're decidedly helpful; she's perfectly polite. The elevator ride is, indeed, a long one. Ilana had not been exaggerating.

There was a time when Emily would have found this all so very much stranger. But that was before the things that had happened last winter. Before she'd met him, and ridden in an elevator not unlike this one. Before she'd followed him home for tea -- and let's be honest, now, this isn't the only tall elevator she's ridden, nor the only city in which she's rubbed elbows with people well above her own station.

She's wearing a cranberry tank top today, covered over with a thin, cream colored ballet sweater of a very soft texture. And jeans, always jeans these days. It's not cold enough to warrant a jacket, and her messenger bag crosses her torso from shoulder to hip. Its bulk rests beside her. It moves with her like an extension of self.

The bruises she wore over the past weeks have faded. They're a faint blush of olive against pale skin. The arms of her sweater are just long enough to obscure them.

The elevator goes up, up up up, and Emily finds herself watching the illuminated numbers until they settle, stop flickering, linger on the very top floor.

The doors part, and she steps forward into the hall.

[Jarod Nightingale] it's a long hallway that Emily finds when she steps out of the elevator. She's seen a hallway like this before, but this one was, if anything, even longer. The walls were pristine ivory (a difficult shade to keep clean, and thus the color of choice for affluent clientele), and the floors were brilliantly polished hardwood. There were only two doors at the end of this hall. Jarod's was on the left. (She'd know this because he'd given her the number in the e-mail he'd sent.)

Emily didn't need to wait long after knocking. He'd been expecting her, and she was a punctual kind of person. Perhaps she half expected him to answer the door in a state of partial dress. There'd been plenty of times when he'd done precisely that. One had to wonder if Jarod simply never wore shirts or socks when he was at home. (The latter - no. The former, much more often now that he lived with a ten year old.) But for all that this visit had an element of history-repeating, there were differences. The neighborhood was different. The building was different. Jarod and Emily (and Jarod/Emily) were different.

When he opened the door, he was wearing a black button-down shirt and a pair of jeans, and he smiled warmly as he stepped aside to allow her entrance. "I'm glad you made it. Do you want any tea?"

[Emily Littleton] The hallway is polished and there's a part of Emily that winces with every footfall, because it's engrained in her to take off her shoes by the time she reaches such flooring. It's a little like nails on a chalkboard and she hopes that her soles haven't picked up any piece of wayward gravel, anything to mar or muss that finish.

It's almost a palpable relief when she steps out of her shoes in his entry way, sets them neatly near (but not touching) the wall. They'd always been of a mind about this: shoes off in the entryway, barefoot or stocking-feet in the main of his flat. She'd even picked crumbs up off the floor for him, when someone was being a rather pert pain in the --

-- we digress.

"Tea would be lovely," she said, and the smile is easier today. It still lets nothing in, lets nothing out, and gives very little away, but there's a warmth to it that wasn't there before. She's genuinely more friendly, somehow; she's grown into a confidence she didn't have before. Emily eases the messenger bag's strap up and over her head, rests it atop her shoes by the door.

She still walks a little on the balls of her feet. She still looks around and takes stock of her surroundings with a keen interest, with a notably sharp eye. It's all second nature and effortless. This much is familiar. So much is familiar it hardly seems like months have passed.

But there's no small touch of her fingertips on his arm, no standing near enough to idly assume casual intimacy. There are miles between them, walls that weren't there before. They police them diligently.

"Is Ilana in school? She's, what, fourth or fifth form?" Emily asks. Polite chit chat. A good place to start.

[Jarod Nightingale] This place... was bigger than his last. It wasn't that he made more money now, because he didn't. For all that his previous penthouse had been a step above what most people could afford, it was nonetheless a fairly simple affair. There'd been only a few key pieces of furniture, and little in the way of decoration. (Though what there had been was elegant in a simplistic fashion - very Asian in influence.) It was a bachelor pad, in common parlance. Not the kind of place one ever really called home.

This space had a similar style, though the color palette was generally lighter (pale floors, ivory walls, white carpets in the bedrooms), and the light pouring in from the wall-to-wall windows gave the place an almost catalog-brightness. There was still a simplistic elegance, of course, but there was more of it now. A couple of huge silk paintings hung on the walls, and he'd ditched his old sofa for a newer (and much larger) living room set. The piano, of course, was still there, but Emily wouldn't be able to see it until she made her way further into the main room. The L-shaped granite counter that marked the boundary of the kitchen had a handful of potted herbs soaking up sun from the nearby windows.

There was a fireplace. A huge fireplace. He hadn't had that before.

The difference was subtle, but it was there. This place felt permanent. It felt like a home. (Albeit a very clean and modern home.) Jarod walked around into the kitchen and filled a stainless steel kettle with water, then set it on the stove-top to heat. "She's in fifth grade. Turns eleven at the end of October. Halloween, actually." (He might have said Samhain, since that was the proper name, but Emily wasn't Verbena, and some might say that he wasn't much of one either.)

[Emily Littleton] Samhain was a word that Emily wouldn't rightly know. She'd recognize it, faintly, from folklore she'd read when she was younger but it wasn't resonant with her. Halloween wasn't much of a holiday elsewhere in the world, not the way it was here. If she thought of it at all, it was another reason to (avoid going to) attend mass. Day of the Dead. All Saints Day. All Hallow's Eve.

Emily has to wander farther in this place than in the last to really take its measure. It's overwhelming, the way that some of the Embassies had been. Or some of the places she'd visited that belonged to royalty or other lofted members of society abroad. This is not the sort of place that Emily imagines anyone would call home.

White carpets. Ten Year Old.

White. Elementary school art projects.

She slips her thumbs into her back pockets as she makes an extended study of the space, picks up on some subtle cues that have changed about his life. It makes her feel smaller, she rolls her shoulders back a little and stands a bit straighter to compensate.

"It's very bright," she says, and that much is a compliment. The light is nice, it would be cheerful even in the winter. He wanders into the kitchen and she stays on the other side of the granite divide.

"Fall's a good time to have a birthday," Emily comments. It's simple conversation, made into something a little more relevant when she adds, "It's my favorite season."

There's a little pause here. She studies his movements. The nearly rote way that they both know to make tea. It's a ritual. Familiar. And so she asks, now:

"How have you been?"

Not where did you go, or why didn't you call, or anything that would press at the margins of their once-was. This is a question about him, directly, and it's not fluff and social nicety. It's serious, vaguely somber, and a little uncertain.

[Jarod Nightingale] The white carpets might be a mistake. They'd come with the condo, of course, and he hadn't thought to replace them. Soon enough, he might. After the first overturned cup of juice or splatter of paint. (Than again, knowing him, he'd probably be just as annoyed with stains on a dark carpet, even if they weren't as obvious.) Food was not allowed in bedrooms. It remained to be seen whether or not that rule would actually be followed.

He was new to this parenting thing, you see. Still new enough that he stubbornly refused to give up most of his luxuries. Perhaps that was what Emily was thinking (and if she was, likely with some wry amusement) when she looked around at this palace of a flat and tried to imagine a ten-year-old girl living here.

"One of mine as well," he said, and smiled a little. "I don't know how I managed for all those years in Dallas, when I was growing up. Northern seasons seem much more natural to me, now." (They'd always seemed more natural, in truth. As if he'd simply been born in the wrong place by some trick of fate.)

She asked him how he'd been, and he stepped up to the counter and put his hands on it, leaning slightly. His eyes left her face and trailed down to examine his fingers contemplatively. There was a consciousness to that, at first, but it fell away as seconds passed in silence.

"I don't think I can really answer that," he said, finally, and looked up. "Not if you're looking for an honest answer, anyway. It's been complicated, I guess. I've been many things."

And then, of course, "...And you?"

[Emily Littleton] He turns her question around and Emily rests her fingertips on the cold stone slab. She taps them, a few times, in a simple pattern. It's a thoughtful thing, and her long digits seem adept at it. But the noise-making stops quickly, it doesn't endure long enough to annoy either of them. All the while there's a slow smile sliding across her features. It's not cautious, but it is a little opaque to him still.

Unlike his eyes, hers never trail away.

"Complicated is a good word for it." She agrees. She can appreciate the nuances hiding beneath the half answer. There are many things she will not ask him as follow up questions. But she asks more than she used to. She pushes a little more than she used to.

"I... wouldn't know where to start, honestly. We could play twenty questions," she says, with a little lilt. The wry smile resurfaces. It's almost playful. "I just... I always hoped that you were well. When I thought of you, I imagined you happy."

Now, then, she looks away. There's a pinch to her features, but it fades quickly.

"It's easier that way."

[Jarod Nightingale] He'd been distant, the night he came to say goodbye. For all his obfuscation, something had been deeply wrong. There were no easy smiles. No humor. No flirtation. It was a thin layer of ice just barely covering a great, gnawing chasm. (Best not tread there, lest ye fall through and be swallowed up.)

But that was six months ago, and a lot could change in six months. Emily said that she liked to imagine him happy. That it was easier. Jarod smiled sadly. "I was happy, sometimes."

The water in the kettle began to simmer, and Jarod lifted off the counter to go and remove it from the heat before it truly started to boil. Afternoon called for a delicate tea. White, perhaps. He opened the cupboards and retrieved a couple of cups and saucers, an infuser, and a tin of silver needle.

"I was in Toronto," he finally explained. "Ilana grew up there. I didn't know about her, until recently." And that was a very short explanation of a very complicated situation, but they were both in the habit of communicating that way.

He left the tea leaves to steep and wandered back to where Emily stood. "I imagine that a lot's happened in my absence."

And that was something of an invitation, there, for her to speak on the things she came here to tell him about.

[Emily Littleton] He'd been distant when he'd come to see her that night, but goodbyes were rarely warm and open things. By the time they surfaced, something had shifted, broken, giving way. It's how she'd known, before he'd said anything, that he was going away. It's why the corners of her eyes and mouth had been a little tighter, why there'd been no argument, no fight, no questions. He'd kissed her forehead. She'd wished him safe journeys.

He'd walked away.

"More than you'd think," she tells him, also with a sadness. It's held back, kept in. It's not of him, or for him. But it's there. It wreathes her just now and there's little she can do to put it fully aside.

"I told Ashley you're back," she tells him. It seems the best place to start. "She's in charge of the House now, more or less. Everything's predicated on your cabal -- if you have one -- since Dylan passed."

She's careful about how she phrases things, but there's a tension to it. A taut and singing note that runs through her words, pulls close her shoulderblades.

"Each cabal puts forward an Emissary; the Emissaries make decisions on governance." The politcal words come easily to her, but she has no relish for them. It's perfunctory.

"Not that we've had much time, of late. There is a Labyrinth, in the city," she tells him. Plainly. Matter of fact without hesitation. "You should be especially careful as they have connections to Orphanges and outreach programs. They prey on children; had I known you were returning, I might have told you to wait until we'd dealt with this."

We. Because Emily was now part of that which he'd tried to keep her separate from.

"They've attacked the House. Most of the wards were sundered. The Node was attacked but fought back. A Disciple fell." She says this plainly, and then glances downward. Her brows pull together for a moment and Emily is still. Silent. (Reverent). "She was a good friend of Ashley's."

Emily exhales a little, shifts her stance, slides her fingertips away from the stone and folds her arms over her middle.

"That isn't everything, not by a long-shot, but it's enough for now." Then a faint flicker of a smile. "Ashley says I'm an Initiate now, so, there's a little good news."

[Jarod Nightingale] Things had indeed happened, and much more than just the snippets that Emily was giving him now. Jarod didn't seem surprised or unsettled by the news she gave him. Only... resigned. As if he was used to hearing these things. (This world makes ghosts of us, Li Daiyu had said.) Sad, what a person could get used to. Like a soldier who'd walk past a bloodied corpse without even really seeing it.

No, that wasn't accurate here. It wasn't an act of willful blindness, but of keeping a safe distance. He'd always been fond of keeping his distances, in so many ways. The impulse was more than just self-preservation, now. It was also protective. (He had a daughter, and he would not bring those dangers to her doorstep.)

"I'm sorry," he said, gently, after she told him about the attack. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you." And he meant more than just that one night. There was a soft smile, though, at that last bit of news. "Something tells me you've done alright for yourself anyway, though."

The tea was done. He trailed back over to the island to fill the cups. "Thank you for warning me." He brought the tea into the living room and set the cups down gently on the coffee table before taking a seat on the sofa. "Maybe now you can tell me a little bit about what you've been up to."

[Emily Littleton] [Subterfuge - ... Really, I'm just peachy.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Jarod Nightingale] [Are you really? (Empathy)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Jarod Nightingale] [Why yes, yes you are]

[Emily Littleton] [Damn straight I am. And now a quick fading post.]

[Emily Littleton] It's enough, this time, whatever artful glossing over gets them past that moment where he voices a regret and she tries not to feel it so keenly. It's enough to carry them into the living room, and ferry them back to lighter topics.

She tells him about school: she's a graduate student now, and still a fourth year undergraduate. It's a lot to juggle, but it's working out. Her brother came to visit; and when he expresses confusion at that title, she'll correct to her god-brother. She'll tell him that she went home, with the gift he'd given her, and settled a handful of loose ends. That it had brought her closure and a measure of peace.

He might ask about her apartment and she'd tell him little, un-telling things. Remark on how he clearly had the grander fireplace, but that it felt like it might one day be home.

They'll steer clear of talk of Traditions, of overmuch detail into personal lives. She doesn't tell him, now, about Edom. Or about the little things (that night at the club) that would have been devastating just a few months before.

Emily will sit a bit more properly on this sofa than the last one he'd owned here. She won't fold into it and lie her arm along the back, watch him with that playfulness -- that's passed for now. She's shadowed (tarnished) around the edges, vignetted like a forgotten photograph. There's a brilliance underlaying it, surely, but it's settled deeper than her skin these days.

She'll sip from her tea, but sparingly, and some will remain in her cup when it's time to part ways. They've schedules to keep now. She has a class to teach, he has a daughter to rescue from elementary school. They seem like responsible adults, each, now.

But when it's time to go, Emily will lay her hand on his arm. Kiss his cheek in that ritualized way that's more cheek-to-cheek than lips-to-skin. It's very European. It's less about intimacy and more about culture. There's something about him that's always called forward the far-away notes that resound for her of Home.

She'll wish him well, and she'll say goodbye... just in case this isn't all as sure as it seems, or as permanent as it may suggest.