I'm here; you're here.

[Emily] These are long days. They start in the chill of morning, with a run or some cat-based emergency. They progress to studies at the Chantry or University, procede onward to afternoons at the firing range or in the lab, and move on to nights spent hunched over a heavy tome or textbook, studying hard for the next day's troubles. It has been quiet in Chicago for the space of several weeks. Quiet is a relative term. There have been meetings, both lab meetings and Chantry meetings, and redtape of all varieties. She's still made time for trouble making of one sort of another, Tuesday Night Regulars or harassing Thomas, or going out dancing in the late hours of the night. She's got to do something to burn off the frustration, and the worry, and the general stress. Quiet isn't all it's cracked up to be.

So it's a welcome distraction when Jarod invites her over, but Emily can't come by until she's done trying to teach her Freshmen. They've both taken on additional responsibilities this year. Her late night section corresponds nicely to his parenting requirements. It puts her dropping by round about ten o'clock, still heavily laden with school things. Her messenger bag hangs by her hip, and she's carrying a text on the finer points of Component Design. She's also got a folder of papers to grade, hopefully this time without tiny teeth marks. Somewhere in Lake View, there is a feline that's been left alone for far too many hours. It has retaliated by sinking its tiny claws into her silk pillow cover on the throw pillow in Owen's chair.

Only she doesn't call it Owen's chair anymore. She just looks at it, accusingly, as if that will telegraph to the missing Singer. She didn't even argue with the kitten when it claimed it as hers. So it's now An's chair.

Even this late, there's someone in the lobby to check her name against a guest list before letting her up the fancy elevator to the floor where Jarod lives. They take a little longer than usual, because it's late, and the desk is thinly staffed, and most night shift people would rather be doing anything else than talking to a college girl who walked off the street and asked to see Mr. Nightingale.

It only slightly irks Emily, who does not complain. She has the ascent to burn it away, tuck it back, and be grateful that today was not one of the afternoons she spent with Solomon -- as then she'd have been in a crummy mood and far less forgiving.

Perhaps, on second thought, the young woman had more in common with the tenet she was visiting that the desk clerk had thought.

It's a school day, so she's wearing jeans and a lightweight sweater (charcoal grey today, soft to the touch). There's a pale pink scarf wound about her neck, and her leather jacket (which is fast becoming as ubiquitous as that messenger bag). Her hair is lightly tousseled from the wind, slightly damp from the persistent drizzle.

It may be later than he'd expected, but Emily does, finally, knock on his door. It's a quiet thing. One, two. Because Ilana ought to be sleeping by now.

[Jarod] Ilana ought to be sleeping by now, but she wasn't. When Jarod had called Emily, the atmosphere in his home had been relaxed and calm. Dinner had passed uneventfully, and Ilana hadn't needed any coaxing to finish her homework. They'd even watched a movie together before it came time to put the girl to bed.

That was when the mood had shifted, because as Jarod had recently come to discover, children (like animals) were prone to chaos. There'd been a glass of water spilled on Ilana's laptop, and now the poor girl was huddled up morosely on her bed as she watched her father mop up the last traces of the spill and set the machine carefully on its side so that any moisture remaining inside would drain out overnight. Recent tears had left tiny streaks of shimmering wetness running down the child's cheeks, and her eyes were tinted red. Occasionally she sniffled. Jarod had given her a box of tissue, and she grabbed one out of the box and blew her nose.

That was when the knock came. It was soft and muffled this far into the flat, but Jarod heard it. In the hallway, he made a detour to drop the damp towel in a hamper on the table of the laundry room, then strode quickly toward the door. When he opened it, he smiled, but the expression seemed a touch apologetic.

"Come on in." And he stepped aside to allow Emily access, closing and locking the door behind her. "I'm... afraid that we had a slight mishap involving a glass of water and Ilana's laptop, so I'm still putting her to bed. If you want, help yourself to something from the kitchen. I'll just be a moment."

[Emily] She stepped through, across the threshold, and took in the greeting and the slightly frazzled (Jarod is never frazzled) look all at once. Emily was stepping out of her shoes before she'd made more of a response that a warm (tired) smile and a lightly arched eyebrow.

"Would you like me to look at the computer?" she asked. "It's kind of what I do..." She held up the text book for emphasis before setting it beside her shoes. Before putting her messenger bag on top of it.

"Tell her it's okay. Water's rarely enough to ruin anything. At least it wasn't soda, or coffee, or juice." Emily voice is calm, utterly unconcerned about this mishap, though there is sympathy in her expression for the new-found dad dealing with tech drama from a ten year old. (It reminds her a little of dealing with Mac users at the University. Those that weren't in the creative arts, at least.)

"I know it's infinitely less convincing without the demeaning Geek Squad uniform," she jests. Someone in management there things short skirts are requisite for troubleshooting. But Emily heads for the kitchen, probably to put the kettle on and make them both some form of calming tea, and leaves him to his battle of wills with the soon-to-be Birthday Girl.

[Jarod] "I know," he said, when Emily pointed out that computers were sort of her thing. And there was a faint smile there (tired, but appreciative.) "I think it'll be alright. As you said, it's just water." (There was not even any coffee or soda in the condo at all, let alone in Ilana's room - heaven forbid.) "If there are any problems tomorrow, perhaps I'll take you up on that offer."

"Without the uniform. The Geek Squad are idiots. Though I won't complain about a short skirt." There was a sly smirk at that. Even in the midst of a minor crisis, Jarod was still... Jarod. Of course, he had no idea that two of Emily's best friends and current/former cabalmates worked for the Geek Squad, but even had he known, he probably would have written them off as a fluke and maintained his current opinion.

Emily found her way into the kitchen, and Jarod disappeared back down the hallway. He was gone for about five minutes, and occasionally the sound of murmured voices could be heard coming from Ilana's bedroom. Finally, he reappeared, and after resting against the frame of her door for a moment, he whispered a gentle goodnight and closed the latch behind him. As he walked down the hall, he dimmed down the lights with a brief touch to a panel on the wall.

"Did I ever tell you that you're wonderful?" he offered, with a mix of flirtation and genuine appreciation in his voice, as he made his way toward the kitchen and noticed that she'd put the kettle on for tea.

[Emily] The Geek Squad are idiots.

Mock indignation. Exaggerated woe. Rolled eyes. And then Jarod is off to see to Ilana's bedtime and Emily is making herself at home in kitchen in ways she'd not done before, when they had an arguably more intimate relationship. Perhaps it was a marker of just how much things have changed between them; more likely it is an echo of how much Emily, herself, had changed over the past year.

When he makes his way back to the kitchen, she's draped her jacket and scarf over a chair and let down her hair. Now it's a fishing-net tangle of fine threads, a dream catcher, a nuisance. Smooth and curly, no doubt, but with the texture of the day woven through it. She's leaning against the counter with her arms crossed low across her torso. It's arguably the first bit of quiet she's had since early this morning, as it's still warm enough for Emily to be relying on public transport to schlepp herself and her things around the city.

"Mmm, you may have. Once or twice. A fair bit ago," she tells him, rolling the opening sound across her tongue with wry amusement. It's an echo to his flirtation, but it doesn't escalate things just yet. "I hope you don't mind," she says, mock serious, as if this is fairly scandalous, "But I took liberties with your tea kettle."

There, hiding just beside the quiet that weariness brings, is a flicker of the dark amusement that rides behind the blue fields of her eyes these days. She's not quite got the energy for wicked, but mildly troublesome she can manage. And his evening seems in need of a little saving.

[Jarod] "I do not mind you taking liberties," he responded with a completely even voice. He couldn't quite keep the wicked gleam out of his eyes, though.

Reaching into a cabinet, he retrieved cups, saucers, an infuser, and a teaspoon. (Everything tea related had its own place in his kitchen.) After some contemplation, he pulled out a jar labeled Bi Lo Chun. "Do you mind a Chinese green?" He didn't expect that she would. Emily seemed to prefer the lighter teas in the evening, and this one was particularly sweet and delicate. Whatever her answer, he'd accommodate it, and scoop a couple spoonfuls of the leaves into the infuser before filling the container with hot water and leaving it to steep.

"So, I wanted to ask you..." he paused, then backtracked a bit so that he could fill in the whole story. His voice dropped in volume as well, evidently an attempt not to be overheard by the girl who may or may not be asleep down the hall. "Ilana's birthday is on Halloween. I'm planning to take her and her friend up to Madison that weekend, and I could really use another adult around to keep me sane. Do you want to come?"

[Emily] "Not at all, thank you," she says, stepping out of his way so that he could have free reign of his kitchen and his tea making things. Emily's chin dips a little as she moves; it hides her eyes behind the sweep of dark lashes. It makes her a little harder to read in that moment, which is entirely incidental...

Emily listens to his offer, and glances down the hallway momentarily as she thinks it over. "How does Ilana feel about that?" she asks him, before answering. Though, in its own way, it's an answer. If she were planning on declining, it wouldn't be necessary to ask after the girl's designs for her own birthday.

She reaches up to tuck a curl behind her ear, watches him for a moment further. It's a weighty thing, this glance, this consideration. Emily had been rather guarded before, but that tendency to keep her first recations quiet had deepened while he was away. After a long moment, perhaps when she had found whatever motivation or cue in him that she needed, or wanted to find, her smile broadened, softened.

"I'd love to go. If it's alright with her."

[Jarod] "I don't think she'll mind. She seems to like you. Though... it can be a little hard to tell sometimes, with her." (Perhaps that was an inherited trait.) "I'll see how she feels about it and let you know."

Of course, this would require that he figure out a way to broach the topic without giving away the surprise, but that shouldn't be too much trouble for someone like him.

When the tea was ready, Jarod filled the cups and handed one to Emily. There was... a small smile on his lips when he looked at her. Understated, but grateful. One could imagine that an entire weekend filled with nothing but children might seem a little daunting to him. Not that he wasn't up to the task (he was a much better parent than he gave himself credit for), but having someone else around to share in the responsibility was certainly welcome. Especially when that someone was Emily.

Jarod carried his tea carefully across the living room as his bare feet tread with silent grace on the hardwood floor. His free hand came up to massage the back of his neck lightly as he gave a slow roll of his head, stretching out the muscles. "Mm..." he pressed his lips together briefly as his fingers found a particularly troublesome knot. "I think, for the rest of the day, I will just sit on the couch and drink tea. And pretend I don't need to work tomorrow."

He set his cup and saucer down gently on the glass coffee table and let out a gentle sigh as he melted back into the soft leather cushions on the sofa. His eyes followed Emily as she joined him in her own time. "You look like you had a long day too."

[Emily] There was a small smile on Jarod's lips, and it was answered by a small smile from Emily. They were not the same smile in the slightest. One could imagine that Emily, as an only child, as a child raised without her family close, in and out of Embassies, in and out of other cultures, would not have the slightest idea what to do with children. One could image that a Perfectionist and an Architect would not like the chaos other people (especially young people) brought with them. But Emily had a soft spot in her carefully cloisted heart for kids, for the warmth and genuine emotion and outright chaos they wrought.

She likes Ilana. And she likes the subtle shifts that Ilana has brought out in Jarod -- not that she would ever tell him she'd noticed, or even what they were.

These are the carefully kept thoughts of the Singer as she followed him to the sofa, blowing lightly across the surface of her tea. The cup warmed her fingertips; that warmth seeped past the whorls and pads and into her joints. It shook away the chill of autumn. She sipped from it and set it down. There was the faintest rasp of china on glass.

"Here," she said, lightly. "Let me help with that." Her fingertips sought the knot he'd been working on, and while she was not as deft and practiced as he, the months of familiarity with the sphere he'd taught her had done wonders for her kinesthetic awareness. Her fingertips dug into the troublesome knot before she answered him.

"They're all long days, lately." There's a bit of resignation and a bit of wryness to it. He could take it as a complaint or a challenge. It was probably a measure of both.

[Jarod] Strange, considering how many sexual partners Jarod took, just how rare of a thing it was for another person to touch him like that. So rare, in fact, that he couldn't actually remember the last time someone had massaged his neck. When Emily reached over so casually (as if this was nothing at all between friends) and began to knead her thumbs against the sore muscles at the base of his neck, Jarod's initial reaction was to tense slightly in surprise. She might wonder at that - how someone who practically embodied sensuality could be surprised at any sort of touch at all.

It was only a momentary thing, though. Then he let out a long breath and closed his eyes, letting his head roll forward as he relaxed his neck. The tattoo there showed partially above the neckline of his t-shirt, a piece of calligraphy that had been permanently preserved in his skin. The strokes were elegant and beautiful. This was not a stock Chinese character design that had come out of a book.

"Mm... I suppose they are." He made a sound in his throat that was more than a little reminiscent of a purring feline. Something soft and blissful.

"How are classes?"

[Emily] Her hands are not as strong as his. She has to put some of her weight behind that pressure to dig deep enough to loose the tension. It brought her closer to him on the sofa, but surely that was innocent enough, casual enough to not be read into overmuch.

There was a difference between being physically involved with another person, and letting them into the quiet moments, letting them be attentive to quieter needs. These things that Jarod and Emily had shared covered a broader range than most of his relationships. Embracing sensuality was not the same as embracing one's own vulnerability. Surely there were plenty of people in Jarod's life who would help him with something as simple a sore muscle if he asked. The difference was that Emily, tonight, did not wait for him to ask. She did not require an invitation. If he did not want her to help, he would turn her away.

There was too much good left undone in the world because people were waiting to be told to do it, waiting for express permission, waiting. Waiting. Emily had had her fill of waiting. She wasn't any good at it. She wasn't going to buy into it again, over something this simple. This, this sore muscle, was something she could effect, something she could help change, some little bit of kindness she could extend. And from the sounds Jarod made, it seemed to make him happy.

"Oh, you know," she said, slipping the words in between circuits that her thumb made across and over the tangled muscle. "It's mid-term. I've got exams and projects; my students have exams and projects; the new grad student in our lab has just figured out some things, and broken some others. I'm getting used to it though," she says, pausing a little and smirking as she switched her thumbs to give one hand a bit of a rest. "I hardly miss sleeping at all anymore."

[Jarod] Many people probably would have done this, had he asked. But he never asked. (That was precisely the problem.)

Jarod was slow to react to the conversation. It wasn't that he wasn't listening. He was. It was just that... it was difficult to process thoughts right now, with his attention so focused on her hand at his neck. Mostly, it was difficult for him to speak. Funny thing to say about someone who had such skill with language, but he was too primal a creature not to have that kind of reaction to physical and emotional stimuli

"That... sounds horrible." He smirked a little, but didn't open his eyes. "You're welcome to come over if you ever need the distraction."

There was tea sitting in front of him. It smelled good, but he didn't make any motion to pull away and pick it up. Instead his hand found Emily's knee and took up residence there, resting gently with his fingers splayed against her leg.

There was a long silence then, interrupted occasionally by muted sounds that issued from his throat. After awhile, he opened his eyes and looked at the surface of his tea, forcing his vision to come back into focus.

"Careful," he smiled as he turned his head to look at her. "You might spoil me."

[Emily] If Jarod thought, in any way, that Emily had not noted his response and would not remember it later, he was a fool or perhaps an optimist. Even if she did not consciously keep tabs on how to manipulate her friends, it was far too engrained in the Singer to keep her subconscious from learning a thing or two. But those notations and instincts were not all about subverting another person's will or furthering her own agendas. Sometimes they were about showing appreciation, or affection, or simply sharing space in a mutually beneficial way.

Jarod's hand found her knee. Perhaps he was expecting her to tense, or to pull away. Neither happened. If anything, if there was anything at all to pick up in the subtle cues she gave off -- and they were subtle indeed tonight -- there was relief. A little giving in, a little release of tension. For all the time Emily spent around other people, very little of it was affectionate; very little of it went toward easing the natural tensions living built up. Most of her time with other people was spent in active states of readiness, or in trying valiantly to cram more information into her head, or in a watchful state, or simply on guard for the bevy of questions and insinuations that came her way.

Her fingertips smoothed over the patch of skin-and-shirt she'd been kneading at. Then slipped down over his shoulder and away. She settled back a little on the couch and quirked a quiet smirk his way. It had no teeth. She was too tired to push-play overmuch. She'd gotten that out of her system late last week with Thomas.

"And who says you don't deserve a little spoiling some times, hmm?" she asks. It lingers for a moment between them before she shifts and gathers up her tea. Emily blows across the surface of it. Sips at it quietly.

[Jarod] There was a moment of vulnerability present in the way that he looked at her when she brought forth the assertion that he was deserving of being spoiled. It was not so much an expression of emotion as it was a lack of deliberate obfuscation, which for him... was notable. She'd see the way his eyes softened. It was a subtle thing, but it was there.

Then he looked away and laughed softly. "Why do I get the feeling that I'm being beaten at my own game?" She'd picked up her tea, and now he did the same, blowing gently across the surface. His demeanor seemed extremely relaxed. The massage had indeed produced the desired effect. A slow, contemplative sip, and he was leaning back into the cushions again.

"Not that I'm complaining."

[Emily] [Aware as Empathy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Jarod] It's a complex thing, that subtle shift in his expression. Something like gratitude and affection and sadness all rolled up together. This was the look of someone who probably did not think that he deserved to be spoiled, and certainly hadn't been told so anytime in recent memory. It was like trying to tell someone who'd left the Church out of bitterness that God really did exist, and that He loved them.

There's history there, but not in relation to Emily herself. She'd caught him off-guard, and it had hurt a little, in the way that kindness often did to those who weren't used to it, or who were suspicious of it... or who knew that it couldn't last.

Still, for a moment, he let himself feel good, and tried not to question it.
to Emily

[Emily] She caught the vulnerability, the emotion behind it; Emily was, in many ways, more aware of his moods than she had any right to be any more. So she dropped her gaze to the ready excuse of studying the surface of her tea. She let them close, hiding away whatever thoughts crossed her mind in reaction to the shared moment. Perhaps it wasn't fair, to hide behind dark lashes when he'd -- albeit inadvertantly -- bared more of himself that he might to another.

Emily was rarely a fair person. There had always been a measure of give and take, moments of selfishness and selflessness between them. They were, in short, human and more human with one another than with many others.

"I'm sure I have no idea of what mean," she assures him, all innocence and good intentions. There's a side-step here that will let him right himself. But she cannot hide the softness, the soft sadness and gentle regret that someone who was as caring as Jarod -- not that she would tell anyone of his softer side -- should suffer so. She's too tired to pull back from him just now. It's been too long a day, too long a week, too long a summer, a year, and the tension of it hung on her frame.

"Though, for a point of order, you do not hold a monopoly on wanton misbehavior." This is jesting. It is a light challenge. It brings a little lilt to her tone, a quiet dance to her eyes.

[Jarod] He laughed gently before taking another sip of tea. The cup was warm on his hands, and that warmth seeped into him. When he set it down again, he leaned forward, arm outstretched, then righted himself. This time, he did not fall back into the cushion, but twisted at the waist and put his arm up on the back of the sofa. This position brought him closer to Emily, who'd moved back a bit but was still very much within his space.

"You're right. I don't."

He touched her hair, letting the curls slide softly through his fingers before brushing them back and away from her face. He didn't say anything - just looked at her. And if she continued to hide her eyes, then he'd touch her jaw gently and pull her face back up to meet his gaze.

"But I still hold the record, I think." His wry smile was softer than usual, but it wiped away any lingering traces of that look she'd seen in his eyes a few moments ago. The ambient light in the room was warm and soft, and it gave his eyes a (Blue) Velvet quality.

[Emily] There's something there. Something in the way she almost responds to his fingers in her hair, along her jawline that way she used to once before. Something in the soft distraction to her expression. Something not overt and obvious but subtle, hidden, wistful. It's a gentle exhale just before her eyes blink open, seek his, fail to keep him completely out tonight.

"Oh, no doubt," she agrees, one side of her mouth edging upward just a little in remembered mischief.

Then a shift. "It's nice to see you happy," she says. It's genuine. It's unencumbered. Emily likes to imagine that the people who have left are happier wherever they have chosen to be. She knows that it isn't so. Nico came back battered, bruised, worse for wear and hardly hale. Somewhere out there... She closes her eyes again, blinks them open and glances away long enough to set her tea back on the table.

It takes her out of his space for a moment, and when she settles back they are slightly -- but not largely -- more separated.

"It's good to hear you laugh."

[Jarod] [Empathy right back at you]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 5, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Emily] There has been an awful lot of sadness of late. It wears on her. She carries it, like he carries his new responsibilities. It separates her from other people until she breaks down, like she had last week, and needs in ways she's simply not comfortable with. Until she pushes boundaries, like that night in the club (and more subtly here) until something gives, something feels a little more tangible, more absolute and certain. Emily is not Jarod, she is not as sensually indulgent, she is not as skilled or sure or sexually adventurous -- but she does crave, and long after and want some of the same things.

It's good to hear him laugh because there hasn't been much laughter lately. It's good to see him smile, because so few people have gone away and come back smiling. Jarod, of all people, is giving her hope that fences can be mended, that friendships can endure, and that affections are not empty. People are not all sound and fury, chaos, nothing.

She needs this certainty. She needs to hold on to it, to swallow it up, to believe in it. She needs to not be lonely, to not feel so isolated and restrained. So controlled. So carefully composed.

You make me remember. You make me forget.

There, too, is a tension to her that sings. A taut, unbroken readiness. Even here, quieted as it is, she is vigilant. It's exhausting. Some day she will break, and have to slow down, and have to relax, whether or not she is ready. That some day may be going to Madison. That some day may be next year. It's coming; she'll have way of choosing its arrival if she continues this way.

And there is a warmth. There is always a warmth. For him. Because they did not part ways over who and what they were to one another; because they were cast about by Fate, bones thrown by an oracle, ships passing in the night. There is a reason she comes to him, not for the distraction but for the company. Emily is not the girl he left behind when he went to find his daughter. She is the Initiate he found when he returned. The year has weathered her. Tempered her. Brought back some dark amusement, brought back some old hurts.
to Jarod

[Jarod] Life is a form of hope?

If you are hopeful.

Maybe hope is the same as breath—part of
what it means to be human and alive.

Or maybe hoping is the same as waiting.
It can be futile.

Waiting for what?

For a life to begin.

I am here.

And I am still lonely.


She said that it was nice to see him happy. Jarod might have disagreed with the overall assumption (he was not, in fact, a happy person - as evidenced rather strongly by some of his recent behavior), but it was true that there'd been some subtle changes within him since he'd returned to Chicago. Subtle, but... deep. Like something had crawled inside his chest and dislodged a little shard of his humanity that had previously been safely locked away. It hadn't erased the bad things so much as added a different layer of feeling - one that was (yes) capable of finding moments of happiness.

Jarod's response to this was a complicated thing, so in the end, he neither confirmed or denied Emily's assertion. Instead his expression became muted and thoughtful.

"I know that I don't really have a right to say this, but I really hate... seeing what this is doing to you. The waiting. It's not fair to you."

[Emily] She smiled softly. It was a subtle thing. It tugged up the corners of her mouth, but down the corners of her eyes. It wasn't as much a true smile. It was a recognition, a mark of gratitude, of appreciation. But it wasn't warm, for all its resonance. It wasn't happy.

Emily leaned back into the couch a bit more. Turned toward him as she was, it brought her shoulder up against his arm where it laid across the back of the couch. She was thoughtful for a long moment, but then answered. And when she answered, her voice was lower, gentle but not unmoved.

"And if you have no right, then who does?" she asks, but it's a rhetorical question. A nod more to who he has been to her than anything else. Who they still were to one another. Emily's eyes close again, for a heartbeat. So much is kept unsaid, just to the side of what they're saying aloud. This is nothing new, for either of them. But that doesn't make it comfortable, or right.

"He didn't ask me to wait." She doesn't owe Jarod an explanation. They didn't owe each other anything. But she was sitting on his couch, drinking his tea, and explaining anyway. "I... I don't know. It's stupid. I wanted to try this whole getting to know someone thing, or maybe being friends first -- there's a few more cliches. After school special wisdom. I can't think of them just now. But that sort of normal falling into something that some people get -- I think? I think I wanted to pretend that I wasn't going to leave this time."

She huffed a little. It was half of a chuckle. Followed by a thin-lipped smile and a little brightness to the corners of her eyes.

"And I didn't," she said softly. "I didn't leave. But Owen went to find his friend -- and it's good that he did, because things don't seem to have gone well for him. This friend came back, last week. He looks like shit; I'm glad someone went after him. He came back... and Owen didn't."

It hangs there. Emily doesn't make eye contact. She's looking at some thing else in the room. The corner of the mantle. Emily blinks once, then twice. Shakes her head a little.

"I don't know if I can do this anymore," she tells him. It hurts. "And I don't know how to stop hoping either. So, please, if you can tell me how to stop worrying, and caring, and waiting, I would love to know, Jarod. I would really love to know."

[Jarod] She asked him how to stop caring.

Jarod looked at her and was silent for a long moment. He didn't tell her what he'd told Ashley not long ago: that waiting for someone was futile and naive, and that he couldn't understand why people insisted on holding onto false notions of romantic idealism that had no basis in human nature and had originated not from love, but from fear. (Just as so many other kinds of misplaced faith.) He didn't tell her that she was causing herself needless anxiety in the name of an idea moreso than a reality. He may very well have believed those things, but he wasn't a preacher, and this... was Emily's decision to make, right or wrong, for better or worse. He respected her enough to let her make her own choices.

Or maybe it was just easier to keep telling himself that it wasn't his business, because that meant that he... didn't care.

She'd asked him how to stop caring.

"You stop caring when you realize that nobody else cares about you," he answered, in a tone that was almost depressingly calm and matter of fact. (Gone was any sense of vulnerability or sadness here. Something about him had gone numb.) "Because people are intrinsically selfish, and self-centered, and they only really ever gravitate to each other so that they can feel better about themselves, in one way or another."

It was a very fatalistic thing to say. It was the kind of thing that came out of the mouths of people who'd been hurt, and abused, and broken to the point that they would never be entirely whole again. But for all the nihilistic certainty in his voice, this too... was not the whole truth. It couldn't be. Not even for him. Because if he'd really given up... would they even be having this conversation?

Suddenly, his jaw tightened, and he looked away.

"Don't be like me, Emily. Not caring makes a lot of things easier, but it doesn't make you any less lonely. It just makes you an asshole."

[Emily] You stop caring when you realize that nobody else cares about you.

There's no flicker to betray her, when this fatalistic and fundamentally lonely sentiment crosses Jarod's lips. However it calls to something she's feared or believed, she doesn't call that forward. She listens. And she absorbs. And he will know, later, if he looks back on this moment with the slightest bit of understanding in the future, he will know that Emily has heard him. That he's put his finger on a sore and vulnerable thing, and he's pushed on it hard enough to ache. But just now? No. There is not a damned thing given to betray her now.

In fact, she leans in when he looks away. She kisses his cheek, along the fine bone, the slant, far enough back that it might have been his temple. There's nothing more to it than a moment, and that moment feels a lot like something slipping through their fingertips.

Because if nobody else cares...

"I think I've overstayed my welcome," she says, as she gathers up what's left of her tea and rises to take it to the kitchen. This certainty of his, it is not something she wishes to borrow on. It doesn't slake the loneliness or make her feel any more whole. It opens up an ache and a chasm she can't quite deal with, not on the heels of what the Labyrinth has shown her, not with what Ashley found to hold fast to when she went poking around in Emily's head.

There's a lot of darkness in the world. She needs to believe they're cast from something better.

[Jarod] [Empathy?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 9, 10 (Failure at target 5)

[Jarod] [...No, seriously]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Emily] [Subter (Evasion)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Emily] It does not help. Whatever he's said stings; more than stings. It hurts her. Pushes against something vulnerable and unsettled, reopens a wound that has not had time to heal. For all that she knows there is darkness in the world, Emily is not ready to accept that no one cares about her.

But she's afraid it might be true. She's afraid it's more likely to be true than the compassion she's hoped for in others. She's afraid that the compassion she's shown for others is nothing more than her manipulative nature expressing itself in socially more acceptable ways.

He's offered her a perfect reflection and Emily can't bear to look at it. If she latches onto it, if she accepts this world view he offers her, then Emily would crumble. She is not Jarod; they have very different strengths.

So she leaves. This time it's Emily who needs to leave. To walk away. To let his harsh truths percolate somewhere she does not have an audience.
to Jarod

[Jarod] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Jarod] This was the most heartbreaking thing, between the things said and the things not said, between shattered hopes and bleak expectations...

That his prediction, by its very nature, had just proven itself correct.

And that... hurt. It was an old wound. It tore open bit by bit, like stitches being ripped out. She said I think I've overstayed my welcome, but it sounded like goodbye. It sounded like you're not worth it. It sounded like silence.

(Hello darkness, my old friend...)

For a sickening moment, he didn't react at all. Emily got up. Emily walked away. And Jarod sat on the couch and stared at the empty hearth. The place on his cheek where she'd kissed him felt cold, like when falling snow landed and melted slowly into the skin until it disappeared.

But the reassuring blanket of numb detachment didn't fold over him like it should have. Emily was right. Something had changed. But in that moment, it wasn't happiness, and it wasn't warm or loving. It gnawed at him from the inside out until he felt as if he might be sick.

Then he looked at her, and he saw... everything.

His lips parted as he tried to take a breath. It hitched. His lungs didn't want to work.

"Emily!"

From out of nowhere, the sound exploded, bouncing off glass and echoing across the expansive room. It was loud, and rough, and honest, and nothing at all like anything that this man had ever said or done around her in the past. There was a distinct likelihood that he'd just woken up his daughter, but if he had, she (thankfully) remained tucked away in her bed.

Jarod left the couch in a swift, elegant motion, and he was at the door before she reached it, hands pressed against the wooden frame behind him as if to hold it closed.

"How can you think that I don't care about you? Don't you understand? Have you seen... any of me at all?"

[Emily] [WP, my turn!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Emily] She stopped when she heard her name. It was percussive. Loud enough to frighten her, to wake Ilana. Emily stopped cold, hand hovering above the cup she'd just set down on his kitchen counter. For a moment she was numb. Bated breath, anticipatory. Waiting. All of it catches in her throat, pricks at the corners of her eyes. It is so damned hard to breathe.

He's between her and the door, now. There's a bluntness to her movements. She stops short of him. Doesn't try to leave. Doesn't push (yet). Swallows down the lump in her throat, feels it well right back up again. Her eyes are bright with unspilled tears; it only takes a moment before that changes. Before her lip trembles, and those tears fall. Tonight is not a night for holding tight to observances. It is of aches, and loneliness, and inconvenient truths.

"I know you do," she says, softly. He'll have to listen close to hear her. This isn't about letting Ilana sleep it's... they're... She can't say this outloud with any sort of weight behind it. It all gets tangled in her tongue, see. Caught up on the backs of her teeth. It's uneasy; it's not easy.

"I've always known you did. You've been -- you've always been good to me, Jarod. It's just that, I mean if, if that's how you feel about people? If that's what people are to you, then I'm just going to hurt you. I can't be that. I can't be cold like that. I care about you, too. And some day something will happen, because it always happens, because people like you and me, we don't get to be happy for long. But something, something will happen and you'll think, you'll know it's because I didn't care."

She's crying now, and it makes an uneven cadence of her words. They're such unhappy things. They hurt. This whole thing hurts. And knowing she'll somehow be just another selfish asshole that hurt him -- that hurts. Because it isn't what Emily wants, and it isn't want Emily wants to believe. And she can't fix him, doesn't know how to try, doesn't know how to be anything more to him than what she has already.

"Which will never be the truth," she avows, in a voice barely above a whisper but carrying the certainty of bedrock in it. "No matter what happens from here, or who you become, or where we end up, it will always be true that I cared about you. That I care about you, right now. And you can say it's because I'm selfish, or I'm manipulative, or whatever you want, but it won't change. It will hurt, but it won't change."

Emily wipes at her eyes with the cuff of her sweater.

[Jarod] And that was it. He didn't have anything to say to that. Because she was right. She did care about him. And so did Dana, and Nick, and his sisters. People did care. They just didn't care enough. There wasn't enough love in the whole fucking world.

Emily... cried. He wanted...

His lips parted, but only silence remained. Against the door, his fingers bent, turning knuckles white. Then, with considerable effort, he lifted away and took two steps to the side, where he came to rest against the wall. It felt like a kind of surrender.

Then he slid down slowly until he was sitting on the floor, with his knees at his chest. He curled his fist and brought it to his mouth, then he closed his eyes.

Tears overflowed, but he didn't make a sound, and he didn't look at her. He couldn't.

[Emily] It took her a moment to realize that Jarod was crying. That this was more than just stepping aside; this was a sundering not a surrender. And that is accompanied by a flutter of worry, a frantic thing, beating against her ribs like they were a birdcage and it was a feathered thing longing to escape. It made her light-headed, pale-faced, horrified and haunted all at once. Because Jarod rarely so much as smiled without some shading. Because she had never expected to see him come undone.

She drops to her knees beside him. Emily does not sneer, does not avoid. She scoots up next to him, wraps her arms around him and pulls him close. Pulls him closer. There isn't much she can offer -- there's no magic she can weild for this beyond the firmament of a friendship, the comfort of having someone willing to set their own hurt aside and hold onto him. Hold him. Be a solid and steady thing, however aching she was herself, in this uncertain moment.

So that sadness of his is punctuated by the smell of her skin, and the shadows thrown by the dark curtain of her hair, and the press of her lips against the crown of his head. Something mumbled, half-intelligble, something remembered and grammatically incorrect. She's trying to say something in Chinese, but it comes out broken. (I'm here [I will be here]).

If Ilana were to wander out, now, and find the grownups huddled on the floor near the door, red-eyed and pale, she might wonder at the sort of friend that Emily was. (Unabashed [unwilling to agree to his cynicism] willful)

There is not enough love in the world. There is never enough love in the world. That's why people give what they can, when they can, and have to hope that it might be enough. That it might be enough, in a moment like this.

"I'm here," she tells him, and her voice curls into his ear without much volume. It's all nearness and sussurations. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere, tonight, unless you want me to go."

[Jarod] Dana had told him once that being his friend was an exercise in emotional stamina, because the only way to win and keep his trust was to face down his demons - without fear - and push them back. And they were not timid things, Jarod's demons. They were not whispered vulnerabilities asking to be soothed. He attacked with them, as if truth could be made into a weapon.

And it was true, what he'd said. But it was also not true. People... were complicated that way. Just as Emily could make him feel both abandoned and loved in the span of only a few minutes... because she was human. And she was hurt and afraid, and she also cared.

She hadn't expected him to cry. It seemed an impossibility. Jarod Nightingale did not cry. He did not crumble to the floor. He did not break. But that was the thing, you see, about caring. The door went both ways. One could not turn on their heart only when it suited them. This would not have happened in March. But he could not regret the change. Ilana was possibly the only person in the world who he would never regret loving.

Jarod didn't see Emily kneel down next to him, but he felt her. He felt her warmth, and the weight of her arms, and the brush of her hair. He heard her whisper things - haltingly - in his mother's tongue. I'm here, she said.

He didn't sob, or cling to her, or express some kind of catharsis. Maybe he should have, but he didn't. This moment of vulnerability was as honest as he could manage for one evening. Instead he sat very still, as if Emily was a wild animal who might spook if frightened. The only real indications of pain were the tears, and the rigid (nearly shaking), hyper-aware tension in his muscles. After awhile, he brought a hand up and wiped his eyes, opening them again to stare out at the closet door across from them.

"You don't have to stay," he said quietly.

[Emily] "i don't have to do anything," she tells him, letting that stubborn streak (even if it were feigned in this moment) remind them both that they bent worlds, shaped them, and an offer was nothing more than that. She didn't have to stay, but she would if he wanted her to. He didn't have to need it either. Just want. Want was enough, tonight.

Emily slid her arms free of him. That's stock-still hypertension was not good for either of them. She leaned up against the wall beside him, slid down to sitting, pressed her feet flat against the floor and rested her wrists on her upturned knees. She rounded her shoulders out, press the points of their blades against the wall. Then she shifted; elbows on knees, head resting in her hands. Emily turned her head a little, wiped at her eyes with the cuff of her sweater again. The side of her leg was against his leg. They were still touching, for all she was not holding him now.

She closed her eyes against the sting at their corners. Hung her head a little. She had no riposte, no war to push back at him. She ached. He ached. This moment was awful, but at least they were in it together. Alone with their own thoughts, but not physically isolated.

There was a kitten at home that needed her, but this is why Emily had not elected into pet ownership on her own. There was a small cat that would be lonely but ultimately make its own place to sleep, somewhere in a lake view flat, but here she could sit in miserable silence beside a friend. Which was a different sort of need.

Her chest hurts. Her eyes hurts. Her throat is parched and her fingertips feel numb. She can't reach into his thoughts, wouldn't if she could, but she hoped that it was enough to have her sit beside him for awhile. Try as she might, Emily cannot find anything more to say.

[Jarod] I don't have to do anything.

She disentangled herself, but stayed next to him. There was silence. Jarod turned his head and watched her.

"I'm so sorry I hurt you." For a moment his eyes opened up, and they looked very sad. Almost haunted. Reaching out, he touched her cheek delicately, brushing away wetness. Then he took a deep breath... and let it out.

When he got to his feet, the muscles in his back protested painfully, but he didn't give any outward indication of it. His hand was left out, palm up, as an offering. If she took it, he'd help her to her feet. "You should lie down." His voice was gentle, lacking the usual flair of wry sensuality that colored his words. He'd told her she didn't have to stay, but if she wanted to, then he'd lead her toward the master bedroom. (Not the guest room, but this did not imply any expectation - or even desire.) When he appeared around the bend of the hallway though, there was a sudden shuffle of bare feet, and the door to Ilana's bedroom (which had been open) clicked suddenly shut.

Jarod paused, then stepped forward and opened it. In the dark of the bedroom it was difficult to see, but he could make out his daughter's outline on the bed. "Honey, are you okay?"

"You... yelled."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Is something bad happening? Are you okay?" She mimicked his concern with uncertainty.

"No... I'm fine. I'm sorry I scared you."

There was a long pause as he disappeared into the room to sit down on the side of her bed. Sheets rustled. He put his arms around her and kissed her forehead.

After awhile, Jarod reappeared, and he shut the door gently behind him.

[Emily] It wrenched again, all over again, when Emily realized that they (she) had disturbed Ilana. It left her feeling guilty and ashamed, worried that she was a nuisance here and not something (someone) wanted. An imposition. An outsider. She'd never heard him call anyone honey, and she'd not known the sweetness he showed his daughter in his relationships with anyone else.

She was going to stay, but when Jarod slipped into Ilana's room to be an anchor and a certainty for the child, Emily found her way out to a place where eavesdropping wasn't even a possibility. Where she could stand, with her arms wrapped over her middle and her head bowed. With the fingers of one hand tangled in the silver chain at her throat. Unlike times past, she has not called its resonance forward. There is a weariness in this repose, painted heavily across the lines of her face and features.

Their flat has windows everywhere. It is not hard to find some place to stand before one, to bask in the shifting moonlight that swells whenever she darts between clouds and shrinks whenever she hides her face. Between the emotion and the tumult and now the stark silence, there is a buzzing in her ears and a sway to her stomach. If Emily prayed, and prayed aloud in words, now might be the time to do so. Instead she looked numbly out the window, distancing herself from the chaos she'd caused in an already upset ten-year-old's life, letting her mind wander through the bright-prick city lights reflected up this high to glint off their windows, to study the streaks the rain-damp made when it coalesced enough to fall.

After awhile he reappeared. She turned to face him. The bright-prick lights were now just constellations behind her, eclipsed by the shadow form she cast against their background.

"Is she alright?" She seems genuinely concerned with his reply.

And if he offers (if he so much as doesn't turn her away), it will take just a moment for Emily to wander back toward him. To follow him back to the bedroom on quiet footsteps and with a naked relief that threatens to lay them both out raw again. She slips her hand into his for a moment. Squeezes gently.

[Jarod] There had been precious few moments for Emily to observe the interactions between Jarod and his daughter. He was a different person with her. He had to be. Making the decision to bring her back with him had been one of the most difficult things he'd ever done, but once made, the choice had not been questioned, and for all his uncertainty and fear that he could never be anything like what a father was supposed to be, and for all the moments of frustrated rebellion (the nights spent alone out on the town, and in the beds of near-strangers,) he could not, and would not, let himself become cold with her. Ilana had already been through some of the things that had bruised, shattered and broken him when he was a child. He'd lost his mother. She'd lost both of her parents. And a birth-mother that she'd never known, and would never be able to know except through snippets of memories that Jarod could barely bring himself to tell her.

They shared that. They both knew what it was to be left behind. No one had been there for him, when he'd needed it, but he could be there for her. It didn't always work. They didn't always trust each other, or understand each other. Sometimes they fought. Sometimes they didn't talk when they should. Sometimes he was too controlling. Sometimes he wasn't controlling enough.

But little by little... they connected. And things were good just a little more often than they were bad. Theirs was a common dynamic for a single parent with an only child. It wasn't surprising that Emily would feel as if she'd intruded. But she hadn't. She'd been invited in.

"She'll be okay," Jarod said, and he smiled just a fraction. There was some measure of gratitude in that. Ilana was important to him, and it meant something that Emily cared about her (even if just in the general sense that any kind person would care about the welfare of a child.) "I told her she could stay home tomorrow."

Emily took his hand as he coaxed her back to the bedroom. He kept his fingers closed around hers, and his thumb brushed gently over her skin. When he opened the door, he reached in and turned on the lights, but kept them low. Dim, like the lights in the living room had been before he'd shut them off completely on their way back. The master bedroom was large. Noticeably bigger than either of the other bedrooms. It stretched out before them, open and serene. Against the back wall lay the bed, and it was the same bed he'd had before (though with different coverings.) There were memories associated with Emily and this bed.

Her hand was released just inside the room, as he turned to close the door. His steps took him across the room a ways, but he paused next to the love-seat to unbuckle his belt and slide it free from around his waist. He draped it over an arm-rest. Then he completed the path to his original destination and climbed onto the bed, pushing back to lean against the headboard with his knees drawn up. Emily was given the time and space to decide when and how she wanted to join him, and until then, he watched her silently.

[Emily] There's no telling herself that she will go home and see to the small kitten. If Emily goes home later, she goes home later. If she stays, she stays. At some point, she will have to shuffle off for home, make a quick pass over getting ready to get back out to the Chantry for lessons of one variety or another, and start this wearying pattern of her days all over again. This is not a thing she thinks about, just now. It doesn't even cross her mind.

There are memories, for Emily, of that bed. They are largely warm memories. They seem like a lifetime away, now. They well up, for a moment, and then recede like the tides. There is too much between them for anything to be simple. They are not simple people, Emily and Jarod.

She wanders to the edge of the bed. One side of it. Sits there, with one leg hanging down, one foot still on the floor, the other leg crooked before her, half on and half off. Momentarily indecisive. Then she shifts, moves closer toward him, stretches out a bit (there is too much tension to Emily to stretch out, lay flat, relax so easily). She's on her side, facing toward him, body positioned in a looser approximation of a fetal curl. Her toes are pointed, jut a bit, and her arms rest across her middle, but even with all this subtext of self-protection and harm, there is a part of her that begins to relax a little.

Because she is not alone.

Because she has known sanctuary here, before.

Because she can imagine it is not so terribly different tonight.

She watched him watching her, and then her gaze shifted and she watched the weave and warp of the coverings. And then, with a sigh, as if something had pushed free, broken away, begun to slake the horrible tightness she carried, Emily let her eyes slip shut and her expression soften away from watchfulness. To be grateful, to need, to want, to just be close to him. They both know what it means to be left behind, to leave someone behind, to doubt, to worry, to wonder. Emily knows what it is to wait. It is a heavy thing. Too much for her narrow shoulders to bear. It is a heavy thing in the wake of all this sound and fury and he can see as much in just how different the lines of her face are when she reaches out to rest a hand on his leg and finds something warm and solid there instead of just memory.

I'm here; you're here.

There are no promises here, save that they will keep each other's secrets. And no expectations. Those rules were always clear, if never enunciated. And if he curls up near her, or next to her, then she will loop an arm across his middle, or rest her head against his shoulder, or just be another warm weight in his bed to take the briskness of Autumn up in her breathing, to break the sounds of silence with her heartbeat. Neither of them will have to be alone tonight, or at least they will be alone in good company.