Take all the time you need

Grace 
[[Timing-wise on this, since email scenes typically go on for quite a while (my last was 2 weeks) I am going to say this happens in the future -- possibly by only a few days from now. At the very least, Grace will give Alex a couple days of rest from the getting hugged by a spiky guy, eh?]]

Let's go have a sit-down with the police officer and the law professor about your hijacked phone sex line. That sounds like the most pleasant day ever, right? But still, it's a thing that needs to happen. Whatever his occupation, Alex is apparently decent folk, and Grace does try not to judge people by the labels (or in this case, badges) they wear.

Ian told her how they saved Sky. Ian, Alyssa, and Alex. He's so new, and already going at it, guns blazing. He wants to help. He should have Ginger. Assuming he even wants it.

Talking to him alone would be hard enough, but Eleanor wanted to come play with him too. She wants to help explain to him the necessity of breaking the law as a Mage. Sometimes, it is simply the only way. Eleanor who feels like being held under an icy lake and who teaches law. And is she going to tell Alex that, hey, if you think computer crimes are bad, have I told you how much I murder? Judge Dredd is like, her spirit animal. She just might.

Grace isn't exactly going to say no to Eleanor. Could anyone say no to a woman like that? So she played the game of Schedule a Meeting Between Eleanor and Alex. They are to meet at the Chantry today, in about fifteen goddamn minutes. Grace doesn't have any fingernails left. In the waiting, she's chewed them all off.

When they arrive, they'll find her in the living room with her phone and her laptop set up on a coffee table. Grace is sitting on the L-shaped couch, staring out the patio window.

Eleanor
Despite the stereotypes that surround her Tradition, Eleanor does not share a pessimistic view of this meeting.  A newly Awakened mage on the police force is, as she has seen before, a remarkably useful person to know.  Then again, she doesn't share Grace's more revolutionary sensibilities or drives, either.  She has not been given much information on Alex, nor has she asked for it.  She has not, as she could have, dug into his past, looked up his files, pulled opinions from his superiors.  She will meet him knowing the following: that he is a cop, that he is newly Awakened, that his name is Alex.

Eleanor did not come to play.  Eleanor came because Grace asked what people thought, and Eleanor offered to help, and Grace apparently thought that would be helpful.  It wasn't a matter of telling Eleanor -- who Grace is frightened of for some reason -- 'no'.  It was a matter of wanting the assistance or not.

So maybe they're here with very different ideas of why.  It wouldn't be the first time.  None of the Awakened in Denver know Eleanor very well except, perhaps, for her giant of an apprentice.  Fielding the assumptions of other Traditionalists may as well be filed under 'Being A Euthanatos 101'.

A car stops outside, and soon enough the door opens, and Eleanor walks in.  She made it in between rainstorms but has her umbrella just in case, hanging it on the coatrack before walking further into the house.  She knows this place; she spent time here before Grace Awakened, before Alex Awakened, before Sera came and before Shoshannah moved in, before many, many people died who used to call this their home.  It was never her home, and she never called those people her friends.  But she knew where the mugs were kept, back then.  Where the tea was stored.

She doesn't go to make tea.  She enters the living room, finding Grace waiting, looking nervous.

"I didn't see another car outside," she mentions, by way of greeting.  "Is Alex here yet?"

The answer is no, at least for now, so one way or another, she ends up asking: "Would you like some tea?"

Alexander 
So Alexander had received a voicemail message – there was something Grace needed to talk to him about up at the Chantry.  He’d been lying on the couch when the phone has started ringing and he’d let it ring out.  He wasn’t really in the mood to be sociable and, if it was anything important, the caller would leave a voicemail.  30 seconds later, the phone buzzed with a text message: “1 voicemail received.”  He listened and, sometime later in the day, sent a text message onto Grace.  “I’ll be there.” 

And so those paying attention in the house might pick up on a certain Frozen resonance approaching – a little stronger than normal, adding to Eleanor’s Wintry feel and the remnants of the colder seasons.  Around the same time, the faint sounds of a motorbike engine approaches the house – the noise strengthening along with the resonance.  The engine sound dies out with a final roar a minute before the front door opens a third time.

Grace may well notice that Alexander seems a little subdued, but this is the first time he and Eleanor have met.  This might be taken for his normal state, depending on her ability to read others.  But either way, he walks into the living room.  He pauses for a moment at the top of the steps down into the living room, taking in the newcomer, before stepping down them and moving to stand behind one of the chairs in that corner of the room.  “Grace,” he says to the woman he knows.  “Hi,” to the not-so-newcomer.


Grace 
Think of being held under an icy lake, and lo the icy lake doth appear. Eleanor.

"No, not here yet. It's early though," Grace says, and at least she turns around to address the other woman as she does. "I just... Kalen says that Alex told him it would be a good idea to keep anything horribly illegal from him. But he's going to find out sooner or later that drugs aren't the only illegal thing we do here. It has me worried. Where do his loyalties lie? With the cops he knows, or with us -- the new guys in his life, eh?"

She shuts her eyes as winter solidifies a bit more along with the sound of his motorcycle arriving. "He should at least know about Ginger, even if he doesn't want it. That means knowing about me," she says, and looks toward the doorway to the foyer. "No tea, thanks. He's almost here."

Sure enough, the rider of motorcycles arrives, layering ice on ice. It's almost stifling, and Grace wants to fidget in response. 

"Hey, Alex. This is Eleanor," she says, when he walks in.

Eleanor
To some extent, though the weather has been growing more and more balmy in between thunderstorms, entering the chantry is like sinking beneath the surface of a lake that ices over as you descend.  Cracks appear in the ice but even if it breaks, there won't be breath for you.  It's not malevolent, none of it is, though the essence of being shattered to pieces is painful and the sensation of drowning is frightening.  There is, however, a serenity to the unseasonable resonance that surrounds the slim woman with the long blonde hair.  A stillness.  A patience.

As she's offering Grace tea, as Grace is saying he's almost there, Eleanor hears the bike.  She glances over her shoulder, then moves into the living room instead of going to boil water, taking a seat in an armchair and crossing her legs.  She's dressed in slim dark pants and low-heeled boots, a simple white blouse with a cowl neckline and a light blazer with three-quarter sleeves.  Her hair is, as it almost always is, unbound.  Grace says what she has to say, but Eleanor doesn't answer.  She just gives the other woman a small nod.

Though it would be polite, she does not rise when Alex enters.  She's introduced, and since Alex is standing behind a chair instead of walking over, there's no hand-shaking involved.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Alex," Eleanor says, and despite a certain aloofness in her manner, her tone does not lack sincerity.  She does not ask him to have a seat.  He would take one if he wanted to.  Her head tips to the side a bit.  She has pale eyes, unsurprisingly, but there's a vibrancy and warmth and intelligence to them that belies the unsettling nature of her presence.  Alex, even if his senses aren't as attuned as hers, or Grace's, can feel that she is powerful.  Even if he doesn't know what that means, or what shape that power takes, even if his senses pick up on something in her spine or mind and not just her magical prowess.  Physically, she certainly doesn't look imposing.

"I'm sure we all have other matters to attend to in our lives, so I'll lay the cards on the table: you're a police officer, but you're also an Awakened mage.  Grace tells me that Kalen told her that you told Kalen --" and for a moment there's a wryness to that, the game of telephone involved, "-- it would be a good idea to keep you in the dark about things that are horribly illegal.

"I think that's a very unwise course to take, given that you don't know what you're asking to remain ignorant of.  The things we face sometimes require a response that is horribly illegal, and I don't think you, an Awakened mage and grown man, should be kept in the dark even if you want to be."

Alexander 
The feeling of drowning, of being torn apart, had indeed taken some moment to get acclimatised to.  Indeed, that is why there had been such a gap between the bike dying and the door opening.  Alexander had taken a deep breath before walking in – partly in preparation to face people, partly from the feeling that it could be the last deep breath he’d be taking. 

So he stands behind the chair, dressed in his bike gear.  The helmet is still held in one hand and unusually, based on previous visits, his boots are still on.  He had taken the time to wipe them at the door to make sure that he didn’t drag too much dirt into the house.  Eleanor says it’s a pleasure to meet him.  He isn’t yet sure how to take this new woman.  Her aura is uncomfortable, sure, but then some of the others he’s experienced haven’t exactly been pleasant.  “Nice to meet you too, but I’d prefer Alexander.”  This he says to Eleanor – he’d already offered the shortened version to Grace, but that’s something he reserves for when he gets to know people a little better.  His tone is a little flat, a little subdued.  He does mean what he says about meeting her, but, well...

Where Eleanor’s presence brings thoughts of frozen depths, Alexander’s is of frozen heights.  It is of a perfectly still moment standing on a mountaintop; no wind, no cloud, no snow.  No movement at all, just a frozen moment of time.  And maybe that frozen feeling doesn’t just extend outwards right now.

Eleanor cuts straight to the point of why they had come together here, now.  That there were illegal things that he wasn’t going to be able to be kept in the dark from.  Alexander looks at her for a few moments, his dark eyes meeting her pale ones, before turning away from the two seated Mages.  He’s quiet as he takes slow steps over to a side table, carefully setting the helmet down so that it wouldn’t roll off.  There’s a deep sigh as he stays facing away from the others. 

“I can see that was incredibly naive of me.  To think that I could just close my eyes to some of the... unpleasantness that people had already told me was required from time to time.”  Alexander turns and sits on the backrest of one the couches on the other side of the room.  “It seemed safer,” this last word spoken almost as if it was something dirty. 

He looks down at the floor as he continues speaking, although it’s difficult to tell whether there’s something he’s trying to hold back or something he couldn’t force it out if he wanted to.  “I’ve seen a man cut in two with a sword before I could shoot him myself.  I’ve helped to kill something that had once been human.” 

He had, honestly, believed that he would be able to keep the two sides of his life – the mundane and the magical – completely separate.  Draw a neat little line that neither side would cross.  See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  That illusion had been blown apart when they met something that the mundane authorities would have no hope of dealing with.  And when he’d made a certain phone call, triggering a massive investigation into what people were thinking was as mundane as a serial killer.

His head comes back up again; he looks back into Eleanor’s eyes, voice hoarse as he finishes.  “So please, tell me about horribly illegal.”  

Grace 
Oh, Alex. Grace had heard a few things about the rescue of Sky, but no specifics. It makes sense that they'd have had to cut through some of the infested things to succeed. "Alex, those people were already dead. I know, I saw them. Sky was keeping himself alive with magic, and he was slowly failing, okay?"

She meets Alex's eyes, and hers (which tend to dart around) are focused and full of sad understanding. She's been there. "So, last week, Ian brought one of Sky's quilts to Alyssa's apartment, and I used it to trace him to the lake. I saw all those people grown over with roots and moss, and they didn't have their minds anymore. Those people... you put them out of their misery. You did a good thing."

But still, you know, one of the more easy dilemmas one might have to face, morally. Alex might not think so right now, but the universe is being surprisingly kind to him, all things considered.

"You want to know about horribly illegal, well, I get intel. Sometimes I get it by hacking into Austrian servers and accessing people's email and company records. I don't ever do it without a reason, though. That time, I was tracing the trail of a demonically possessed roll of film from Austria to Denver that we know had killed 4 people."

So, there's that. That's somewhat safe of an admission -- there's no extant proof of it.

"But you know, if you were to go and tell on me, if you were to bring me in? I wouldn't get a few years behind bars. I've already been on the radar of certain Mages who fancy themselves the Authorities of Reality. They dress in black suits and love their three-letter agencies, you know? Somebody in the FBI or CIA would be hauling me off for classified anti-terror reasons, and nobody would see me again. My old mentor got caught, and you know, as much as it hurts, I hope they just killed him. It's way low on the scale of horrible things they could have done."

So, Alex, your mundane life was never completely separate. You just didn't know.

And that's the risk she's taking in telling you this. Fates worse than death. So much worse.


Eleanor
[Almost forgot this!]

Eleanor @ 4:51PM

[Willpower (for flaw)]

Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Alex agrees, which garners a ghost of a smile across Eleanor's lips.  It doesn't last, because he's not exactly bouncing.  He mentions watching someone -- or something -- cut in half with a sword.  He mentions killing.  Eleanor, for whatever reason, does not show much reaction.  There's a faint furrow to her brow, and perhaps it's sympathy -- it is, but Alexander may not be able to read it as such -- because there's a genuine ache there.  There is a reason, she would tell him if he could stomach hearing it now, why she does what she does, why so many Euthanatoi do what they do.  It is, in some measure, to prevent others from bearing that burden.

He asks -- please -- to be told of what may be horribly illegal.  Eleanor meets his eyes, has in fact been looking at him even when he could not look at anyone else, but it is Grace that speaks first, Grace who shows a new facet of herself that Eleanor wasn't previously aware of -- given that they've met only a handful of times.

those people were already dead

he was slowly failing

didn't have their minds anymore

out of their misery

a good thing

By that point, Eleanor is watching Grace, her hands folded over her lap, her eyes thoughtful.  Grace, as she confesses hacking for intelligence -- and with damn good reason.  Grace, as she puts herself on the line with things she's done, and what she has learned about the consequences of what she's done.  The real consequences.  The black cars that would slide along the curb at wherever she was being held and remove her from police custody.  Death is better than what might happen.

Eleanor turns back to Alexander when Grace is done.

She gives no confession of her own; Alexander is not of her Tradition.  As far as she understands it, Alexander is not of any Tradition at this point.  He is new.  Instead, she says this: "To clarify: there are also Awakened Traditionalists in government, other branches of law enforcement, and even institutions such as the FBI, CIA, MI-5, the Royal Canadian Mounties, Mossad, and so on.  Just as there are Awakened in universities and hospitals and co-ops and law firms and the Olympics and kindergarten classrooms.  But there are Technocrats and Nephandi and a thousand other things in all those places, too.  Everything is connected."

She says this like a truth so profound it hardly needs to be spoken aloud to be understood and accepted; she says it like an article of faith.

"Given what we're all dealing with, at any given time, keeping the lines of communication clear -- and secure -- is of vital necessity.  For example, if you should come across something that seems a bit...off... in your line of work, you could check in with the rest of us, find out what we know, if anything.  Get help, if you need it.  Give us a warning, if we need it. You would need to know that such a line of communication was capable of reaching a wide array of the Awakened at once without being accessible to those who would seek to harm or eradicate us.

"And wouldn't it be interesting and helpful," she says, maintaining those swift cuts to the chase, "if such a system was already in place, even if its operation wasn't strictly legal?"

Alexander
Those people were already dead.

The words should have been come comfort, something to help ease his conscience.  And maybe with a little more time they will.  But that night is still a little too fresh, the events too far removed from normal to shrug them off so easily.  He doesn’t doubt that what they had done that night was a good thing.  A man was saved after all.  But what happened along the way..? 

Grace speaks and Alexander listens, but it’s still Eleanor that he looks at.  Of the two women, she somehow seems the more sympathetic to what he’s going through.  There are no platitudes, no attempts to make him feel better.  Maybe just recognition that the hell he’s putting himself through at the moment is something that he needs to work himself out of.  That he’s still working out what it is that’s really bothering him about that night.  But, well... He’s not there yet. 

It certainly isn’t the letter of the law, though.

But, see, there’s a change in Alexander as the two women talk.  They explain the risks, the cautions, the justifications.  That there are just so many risks, especially in even talking to him about the system that they’re all but telling him exists.  His voice is quiet, carefully controlled.  What was trying to get out is back in its leash.  For now, anyway.

“I know there are dangers out there.  You’ve been drumming it into me, Grace, along with everyone else.”  His gaze swaps over to her as he says her name, and it’s not the usual relaxed gaze.  “Since all this started, I’ve been worrying about who’s going to work it out.  Worried about the Union or Nephandi or who the hell knows who else figuring out what I am and making me disappear too, because I’m so much closer to them.” 

The quiet voice?  It’s getting louder.  Not shouting and it’s still controlled, but give it time.  “You know damned well that I didn’t have a fucking clue about any of this before I came to this city.  Hell, have you even asked Sera what was going on when she found me?  Did you bother to find out that I was so fucking scared of what was going on, that I’d gone insane, that I was a step away from killing myself?  And you still thought I was Union?!”

There’s a moment, a deep breath, and the volume goes down again.  His gaze falls to the floor, meeting neither of the others’ gazes.  He’s obviously unhappy but, well...    “Tell me one thing.  Given that there are bad guys everywhere, do you treat everyone new with the same level of suspicion?  Or am I the only one to have this special talk?”

[ Do we pick up on Eleanor’s reaction?  Per/Awareness

vesta @ 1:51PM: BTW, can get a quick witness? *flutters eyelashes*

Roll: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Samael @ 1:52PM: Witnessed]

Eleanor
A switch flips in Alexander.  Maybe it's a dimmer switch.  Something grows gradually in him, burning outward, and Eleanor watches it happen.  Hears the change in his voice, the restraint.  She tips her head as he -- to put it bluntly -- loses his temper a bit.  He starts swearing, though not quite yelling yet.

She flicks a glance at Grace, then says: "Alexander, I can tell you this much: this is the first conversation like this I've had.  I obviously can't speak for Grace, or for the experiences she'd had that might make her cautious.  But before you lash out at her, try to remember what she's already told you about the position she's in by discussing illegal activities, which is rather vulnerable.  Particularly," Eleanor says, her voice as calm as ever but touching on cool upon hitting that word, "since you asked to remain ignorant of such things.

"This is her project.  She is responsible for its security, which we all rely on.  I for one appreciate and respect her caution with it, regardless of how her suspicion or wariness might offend you."  She pauses for a moment, then gets a bit blunt:  "I want you to feel welcome.  I want you to learn how to navigate Awakened life with, preferably, more wonder than terror.  I want to offer you some measure of comfort, if I can, for what you've already been through.  But this conversation, this one right now, is not about making you feel welcome.  It's about Grace managing our communication system's security."

Then very blunt, even if her voice is quiet as she says it: "Alexander, maybe you owe Grace an apology."

Grace 
Grace tkes the anger with a surprising measure of stoicism. The man's been through some shit in recent days. It's enough to make anyone on edge and just this close to snapping. She's been there too. And she's about to respond, when Eleanor does instead. The Euthanatos takes her side, and with utter conviction -- perhaps a bit too much. Grace pays attention to Eleanor, but doesn't truly address her. This is about Alex, and it's Alex who she watches.

"I didn't ask Sera or Kalen what was going on with you and how you were handling things because none of that is any of my business. If you had wanted to confide in me your difficulties before now, you would have. I respect your privacy too much to go about that sort of thing," Grace says, a bit remote -- a bit distant. Strange how some people want you to violate their rights, huh? "But I do not think you're Union. I've been on the receiving end of those kinds of accusations myself, and I know how it sucks.

"I also think you are a cop. As such you have a duty to report the crimes that you see, and I am a criminal. What if during all that fear and ignorance in the beginning you decided that the best course of action was to try like hell to keep on going with your normal life? To find some stability in the chaos by just sticking to the rules? How am I to know how seriously you take your job, and hey -- maybe that's the reason why you didn't want to know these things? Because you knew you'd have to turn someone in?

"I think you're new, and I think you asked Kalen to keep things from you because you didn't want to have to have to face certain things yet. Having to face just being what you are was enough. So I let you stay in the dark, and you're right that it was a bad decision to keep you there for so long," Grace says, not really matching his anger or sounding sad. It is what it is. "In fact, the whole reason why we're having this conversation now is that I realized I should have had it with you sooner. Before you went all-in on a rescue mission, you should have had all the tools I could give you, and you didn't. I'm sorry. I was afraid."

"For the record, I am very careful who I let know. I don't just sit down with someone on day one and explain everything I do. I don't let anyone know about our secret communication network until after they've had a chance to at least be told about the Chantry and the Node and have met people and obtain some level of trust and it still gives me the fucking heebies sometimes when I have to do it for someone who's completely fresh. Because what if they're a mole? What if they were sent here on a mission and are just very good actors? Yeah, I fear that. But I didn't fear it especially so in your case."

Alexander 
Sorry this has take a little while to come through, I’ve had a few sleep issues which seems to stop the little flashy cursor from being overly inspirational.]

Alexander sits there, on the back on the couch, for some time.  The only movement is the slow rise and fall of his chest and shoulders as he breathes.  He doesn’t look back up at the women as they oh-so-calmy and oh-so-reasonably justify what has and hasn’t been done.  The anger, as quick as it had been to start building, has quickly cooled.  There is to be no blazing row here, now. 

Maybe there’s a little disappointment there, if the others are inclined to pick up on it.  But whether they do or they don’t, they’ll see Alexander’s shoulders slump a little.  His head shakes slowly and his lips move, but no sound comes out.  He seems to mouth the same thing a couple of times before both movements stop. 

“I don’t care,” he says so quietly that the others might struggle to hear.  “Just leave me alone.”  With that, he picks up the helmet from the table and heads towards the front door.  He doesn’t make eye contact with either woman on the way.

Grace 
It's easier to deal with Alex's anger than it is to deal with his abrupt departure. Grace, you should know by now that your talking with people skills suck.

Alex might hear her whisper, "Shit," under her breath, followed by a sigh when he turns his back. But she's not going to bound after him or otherwise try to coerce him into staying. She would just fuck it up even more.

"Hey, Alex, if you want to talk to somebody, Kalen is fantastic. He helped me out so much," Grace says, loud at his back. She doesn't really care about the faux pas of making the offer on Kalen's behalf. She knows how much Kalen cares for Alex. He'd want to help. He'd be good at helping. 

"You would think, with all I've been through, I'd be better at this by now, Eleanor," Grace mumbles, obviously defeated.

She thinks back to Lena, and then even further -- to a mother she doesn't speak to anymore. So many people in her life hurt or gone because she couldn't be human enough. Whenever someone is hurting, she's seemingly fantastic at shoving the knife in and twisting a bit more. Much like her resonance, really. Perhaps it's just her lot in life to never be a comforting presence or a rock to cling to in the hard times.


Eleanor
Eleanor does not know him.  There was a clue in his tone when he told her to call him Alexander but did not correct Grace when she called him Alex: she does not know him, and he was not -- at this point -- inviting her to know him better.  She does not inherently pick up on any emotions but the obvious when he settles down, and she does not look deeper than the emotions he wears obviously.  Or rather: even if she does, it's not her place to push for clarity.

She waits, patiently, while he mutters or mouths to himself.  She does not ask him to speak up.  She watches him, hands folded, after telling him that he should probably apologize to Grace.  He does not.  He tells them he doesn't care, and says leave me alone, grabbing his helmet and getting up.  Which leaves her at an awkward impasse: she has no reason to be all the way out here in the boondocks without this conversation with him, and plenty to do other than sit out here in the boondocks, but she can't very well respect his demand to be left alone while she's getting her keys and heading out the door a step behind him.  She exhales a brief sigh, but does not stop him, or speak to him as he thumps his way out.

Her head turns and she looks at Grace, as Grace calls after Alexander that Kalen is fantastic and helpful.  Most likely, the door shuts shortly behind Alexander, unless he is the sort to turn and come back after that.  Her head tips as she regards the Virtual Adept, who she also does not know very well, or know much about, or what she has been through, or why it should make her better at 'this' -- whatever Grace means by 'this'.

Eleanor just gives a quiet, small shrug.  "It is what it is," she says.  She could as easily say: you are as you are.  he is as he is.  They would be otherwise, in this moment and at this time, if they were meant to be, or if they could.  "He will adapt," she goes on, putting her hands on the arm of the chair and quietly levering herself up to her feet.  She does not add what will happen, what can and does and -- in her mind -- should happen if he does not adapt, cannot adapt.  "So will you," she adds, and from her expression and tone it sounds as though she means this as a comfort: she heard that tone of defeat in Grace's voice.  Eleanor has sympathy for that feeling.  She just doesn't believe it is the truth.

She nods toward the hall.  "I'm going to head back to town.  Do you need anything before I go?"

Alexander 
The only sound from Alexander as he heads towards the door is the fall of his solid boots on the floor.  He’s not heading out in a rage, the footfalls are the same as when he arrived.  Had the soles of the boots been softer, they might not have been all that noticeable.

Hey, Alex

Alexander pauses for a moment at the top of the steps leading into the foyer, his free hand resting on the door frame.  He stays there for a breath... two... three... after she suggests talking to Kalen.  But then he’s moving again and the front door opens and closes again quietly.

He walks quietly back to his bike, swinging one leg over to straddle it.  He sits there, frozen for a few more breaths.  “Shit,” he mutters under his breath now, mirroring Grace’s curse shortly before.  A glove gets pulled off and a mobile pulled out of a pocket.  He taps something into it before replacing it, the glove and, finally, the helmet.

As the others hear the bike return to life and Alexander’s resonance – which Grace might notice had been a little stronger during this encounter than in previous ones – fades into oblivion.  Grace’s phone makes its presence known to its owner.  There’s a message waiting.

Sorry.

Grace 
"You mean, aside from a sentient robot companion? No, I'm okay," Grace says, trying to cover the awkwardness of Alex's departure with a bit of humor, but the defeat laces itself in her tone of voice.

She looks up at the ceiling, blank whiteness a comfort. "I think I'll stay here a while. Visit the books. They must miss me by now."

It's then that the phone in her laptop bag goes off, and Alexander's bike roars to life. Parting gift or coincidence? She pulls it out and reads, then turns her eyes to Eleanor's direction. "He says 'sorry'."

Grace then fires back a message of her own, in silence.

-- Don't be. 

-- Take all the time you need.

-- It's not easy, I know. It sucks pretty much. Someday, if you want to, when you want to, you can come to me and we can talk more on that subject.

It's not easy when you life changes so abruptly, so horrifically. When you think that everything is so normal for so long, and suddenly it isn't. No, you're cleaning up after someone else's huge and deadly mistake. You're watching people die in front of you. And everyone you know just keeps saying life will continue to be like this, so you'd better get used to it. They'll tell you that you shouldn't take this so hard, after all, there are worse things out there. Who are you to be so broken?

Looking back on it, the only thing Grace ever wanted after going through that change was permission to feel. To be able to ruin someone's day entirely and not have them take it personally, or require her to act a certain way for their own comfort. Tall order, really.