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This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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If only it were so easy. It isn't, but over the years Jacob has learnt his lesson. He can't go back to the bottle, it won't solve his problems. He can't throw his toys out the pram. He can't just give up. There's a lot of people he has to support, a lot of lives that require him to focus and work hard. So he keeps pushing. He tries to do the right thing, and he tries to make up for his mistakes.

One mistake was giving this woman shit when she was trying to point out the truth.

He will walk with her, keeping her on the right side of him. After all, his left is a blind spot now.

"I hope he's recovering." Jacob replies, when she mentions she knows someone else who passed away down there. "Dying is not as easy as I thought it might be."

Her question is a valid one, and it's one he's been trying to answer too. His memory is patchy, but he remembers the earlier days more so than the latter.

"My current theory is that when we talked, I hadn't taken so many blows to the head. My body was still...functional. I can't say I remember every detail of our discussion."

Rosita doesn't mind the arrangement, since it puts her bad arm on the inside between them; it gives her range to bring her good arm up if he tries anything, but lets her guard them both from her side anyway if someone else tried something. She can make it work. She always makes it work.

"I'm beginning to wonder if I lied about it to all those people all this time too," she mutters, because apparently everything doesn't just stop. But even if he doesn't remember what they talked about, she does. She remembers him coming out with that out of nowhere.

She's able to feel it, now. "Probably for the best. I won't say I wasn't myself at the time, but I will say I was the smallest version of me. Not one I'd want most people forming an opinion on."

It's not shame that makes her say this, not for a moment. It's concession that even though she doesn't regret who she becomes when survival is on the table and she can't be made to, she knows it's not sustainable once the crisis is over.

She will no doubt notice the way he keeps his head turned, in part to keep an eye on her, but also to turn his gaze to the left, watching the rest of the park. Thankfully, his sight is not the only keen sense he has. His hearing is still better than most people's, and his Eagle vision is unimpeded by the loss of one eye. Like her, he's watching. Quietly, casually, as if this way of walking and talking is second nature, assessing what might be a risk and how to deal with it whole holding a conversation.

"I don't think you were lying. I think the circumstances play a big part in what the truth is, ultimately."

After all, here? Everything is different from home. His home, her home. Most people's homes. That doesn't make her wrong about the situation she's used to in her own world. Nor does it make it different here.

"I think the people left behind still have it worse. I was none the wiser back home. But my contract partner here? He mourned me. And he still is. I'm not the man he knew, and thats hurting him."

He's twenty years older, for a start. Less fun, less attractive, less jaded.

"I'm afraid I wasn't the version of myself I would like most people to meet either." He will admit that freely, taking his cue from her. Scared, in pain, and looking for a way out. "I won't go as far to ask for a fresh start, but perhaps a continued examination of the facts?"

There's a whole lot to unpack there, and she's still deciding if she actually wants any of it. If she wants to open the door for him to ask similar things of her. The people back home, after all, are still mourning Jesus while this morning he made her breakfast; they might be mourning her, although she has no clear memory of what might have happened like the others here who know they've died. Maybe it was that quick, that complete for her. Maybe it just means she's not dead.

Either way, she's still worn out enough and the loss is still fresh and unprocessed enough that here, away from Jesus who has his own issues to deal with around his death and doesn't need hers, she feels the faint pinprick sting at the corners of her eyes and shoves it back mercilessly to focus on what Jacob is saying. It's stupid, anyway.

"Alright. I'm game for that. We've already started with names, so the next logical step is are you reaching out to a lot of people from the pit, or is there another reason you wanted to talk to me again?"

It's a lot, but it can stay in its box. Why unpack before you've moved in? There's no need for them to share those wounds, no need for any more than a passing comment at this stage, a nod of I understand. Sometimes that's all you need, a little squeeze of the soul to say you aren't alone with the thoughts and the pain.

He notices the slight tension that goes through her shoulders and doesn't press the point, let the moment pass and ease into nothing again, let it ease before it causes more upset.

Her question is a good one- he assumed she would go for a more personal, more usual question, something about him, but perhaps the question she actually asks will tell her far more than asking about hobbies and living situations and all the rest of it. He can answer it too, and perhaps far more easily than he could tell him facts and figures about himself at the moment- he's still struggling with the memories of being a young man here, less than a month ago, and being a man in his forties that has lived a full life elsewhere.

"I'm trying to speak to as many as I can. We went through something terrible down there. Even the ones who walked or limped out, the experience leaves scars. I wanted to make sure everyone who needed it had the chance to talk. And, I suppose for myself? It's cathartic."

She hadn't bothered to expect any answer in particular - she doesn't know him that well or vice. All the same it's an answer that surprises her because she hears it so rarely, and that shows in the brief glance she spares him, measuring and sidelong.

Everyone where she's from has trauma of one kind or another to spare; everyone still alive, that wasn't able to find a community from the drop, has done something they're not proud of. Usually multiple somethings, possibly something they're outright ashamed of, horrified by. No one is eager to talk about those things, so the standard is not to ask. Not to try.

Rosita is an exception, sometimes, when someone is struggling enough that it risks them or someone else. Siddiq every now and again, Jesus... frequently, honestly. Maybe King Ezekiel. That's pretty much it in her experience, so she studies Jacob now and wonders - "Why? Okay, for yourself, got it. But why is it your responsibility to worry about the rest?"

He knows its not the way things tend to go. He's British, stiff upper lip and all that, keep going, don't let it break you. But they aren't made of stone, they aren't beyond hurt even if they've suffered. He certainly isn't, and he doesn't expect anyone else to walk off their pains and grief. You can't let it stop you living, but that doesn't mean you ignore it.

"Because I'm a person. I'm here, I went through it. I want to heal. We think that there's only two roads to go down, with pain- you ignore it all and pretend it isn't there, or you let it flatten you. But neither of those work." He knows that from experience. The anger that built up in him because he tried to bury it, the emptiness inside him when he found himself consumed.

"There's a middle path. And it involves talking. And working out that you can still walk, if you have someone by your side."

It's a bit of a metaphor, but she's clearly intelligent, she has seen a lot of shite in this place and at home.

"And, like I mentioned before, I owed you an apology for throwing back in your face what you were trying to tell me."

I want to heal. She realizes as he says it that it's the missing piece from a lot of the people she knows - or, if not absent the desire, they lack the opportunity or the knowledge of how to even go about it. Bodies are easy, her arm will heal on its own and either it will be good as new or it won't, and she'll adapt.

But the rest is harder. Much harder, and though the metaphor he hands her is true, she also knows that it's possible to just keep walking and skip the middle step. Just keep walking and drag the rest behind you, because there's not time or energy for piecing it all back together again.

She presses her lips together, knowing she can't agree. Knowing she doesn't have a good reason for disagreeing now that they're here, which is not the world she is from. Which does not demand the same things of its survivors as hers, but all the same, she's survived where so many others didn't for a reason. That reason is how she's adapted to dealing with all the shit that happens.

"You weren't the only one that didn't want to hear it. There was only one other person in that pit that agreed with me, and one person that said he did but kept acting out anyway." The bitterness of the moment then has turned into hurt now, because people died. People died senselessly, and she couldn't get them to listen to her to avoid it. It wasn't her fault but it still hurts. "I've been held hostage before. I've seen people killed in front of me for no fucking reason before. I'm not saying the reason I've survived when others haven't is always down to anything I've done, but I've definitely seen what gets people killed faster. It's a hard lesson that no one really wants to learn."

And some may still not have learned it, but hopefully they won't have to go through it again. She just doesn't personally place much stock in hope. "Did anyone tell you how it shook out?"

Jacob isn't sure he knows how to do it either. But he thinks this is a better option than the others he's tried, tried and suffered through, and got nowhere. If talking and thinking could work, he's going to try it, and he's going to try it properly. Of course, here is different from home, for all of them. Here, something will happen probably two weeks from now, maybe less, because there's something in the water and Duplicity can't go six weeks without something going wrong. But, and it's important but, you usually can still breathe and think and get through it. You can still work on what you need to work on. You can still rely on those around you.

If she'd said what she's thinking, about skipping the middle step and just dragging the shit behind you, he'd say that wasn't any different to ignoring it. You're not dealing with it, you're not letting it crush you, but it's still holding you back. That doesn't work either, not really. Not in the long term.

"I suppose that's the triumph of experience over optimism. Those of us who caused problems thought we could shield people, but... we couldn't." He regrets it too. It does hurt. It's another thing to add to his list of failures, but that's not why it hurts, not really. It's because he made the same mistake he always did, when he was younger. Rushing in head first, thinking he knew better. And people died because of that.

"My dominant, Vrenille, he said that people up here started searching- and the Creator tried to stop them. But they did it anyway, and eventually, they found... wherever it was they'd hauled us. I understand the fight was bloody rough."

"Vrenille." It's a name that keeps popping up, and it reminds Rosita that she's going to need to talk to him sooner rather than later too. She owes him something kinder than she gave him, but also a proper conversation.

She may have spoken about how terrible people are and that allows her to be terrible in turn if she needs to be - but when she doesn't, she tries not to let it ruin her. She tries. She presses her lips together and nods.

"I'm not always right. I've seen it go down that hitting hard and hitting fast was the right call, and I've seen waiting for an opening just make it easier on the assholes. But this time - they found us, and we could've done with a few more strong arms when it happened." It's not accusatory, just... sad. "I'm not angry with you. But I don't accept apologies that are just words - hopefully we'll never need to find out if next time goes differently."

She doesn't say it like she has much hope. She doesn't. "What finally got through to you?"

"He's a good man, but this has been very hard for him." Not meaning Jacob's return specifically, but having all his friends and contract partners end up in the Pit, having to go search for them. It had clearly hurt him, and Jacob does feel partly responsible for Vrenille's pain, because he didn't walk out of there. He shouldn't have been kidnapped in the first place. But even Vrenille and his magic powers can't change the past.

Rosita's confession earns a small tug at his lips, a little smile that withers quickly.

"No one can be right all the time. But in that time and place, you were right. You had experience and logic behind you. I was young and stupid." And he hadn't done any good. He hadn't stopped people dying nor had he made this better for those that didn't die. But her saying that... he knows what she's getting at. He knows it's coming from a kind place.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you a moment of sudden realisation, I simply... knew it. I think having the time I've had, the things I have seen and experienced? They have made me more inclined to watch and consider before I make a move."

In short: he grew up.

"Well, I am amazing," is her dry reply. She's earned a lot of respect in the communities she moves between back home, and she likes that her word goes as far as it does, that her opinion is sought even if it doesn't prevail. But she got her start by being woefully underestimated, and that comes with side effects.

She knows herself, and she can start again, so it's easy to be calm now. "It was hard on a lot of people. It still is. Most people live their whole lives without experiencing anything like that, from either side. I'm getting off easy - I had a friend on the outside and a friend on the inside who are both from my world. I knew if he wasn't dead that Jesus was looking for us. Now that we're out we can just keep going."

She glances sidelong at him. "Is that time and experience helping you and your friend now?"

"Ah, why didn't you just say that in the first place?" He replies in an equally dry tone, but his eye is broght woth mirth. "That would have reassured me amd we wouldn't have this problem."

Jacob wasn't amazing. Not as the young man she had first met. But by the time he was in his thirties, and was Master Assassin of London, his own opinion had similar weight. The council who had once begrudge him anything tripped over themselves to ask his thoughts. But he was by no means infallible. Recent events proved that.

"I suppose knowing people from home males a lot of difference." Jacob doesn't have that luxury. Never has. But he thinks the fact that Vrenille's best friend from home was also in the Pit had made the experience even harder for Vrenille.

"I don't know. I have tried to ask but he wasn't ready to talk. I'll have to go back to the Down sooner or later, but that distance might be better fir him. He won't feel... obligated."

"Well now you know, so you have no more excuses," she quips back, that crooked smile putting in another appearance. This one does reach her eyes as she starts to relax.

As she starts to consider what he's telling her in the present rather than the past tense.

"That sounds hard." She thinks again of Jesus, but they're from very close together; he didn't live a whole life here without her or vice versa before they were brought together again. And for however close they are - and they are - they are still just friends.

Jacob and Vrenille sound like more. "For both of you."

He gives a nod- no more excuses. But even as he does, he can't help but notice how that smile spreads across her face.

"It... has been." Jacob admits. "But I can't expect things to be the same, not after what has happened."

Not immediately anyway. Perhaps not ever. He loves Vrenille, and part of that love is not trying to make this any more unpleasant than it already is. He'll just offer what support he can.

He considers asking her how all this has impacted her contract, but he realises that's making some assumptions and, more over, it's highly personal. He volunteered the information about his contract with Vrenille, but he won't pry into hers.

"As it is, there's still work to be done. The group that kidnapped us, they seemed to havwxbeen very well organised for Zealots. But I've nor heard a good explanation yet for why they did what they did."

"And we may not ever," she answers in a voice that goes hard like the flick of a switch; she doesn't expect a good answer out of it, obviously. "The SIN guards took all the prisoners. If I'd been thinking straight I would've kept one, but I ran out of arms."

And no one was listening to her anyway. "When this is healed, if we still haven't heard anything, I'm going to figure out if LIERs can become guards." She'll have answers one way or another.

This is how long it takes her to put together the vague bits and pieces Jacob's given her, about things not being the same, about contract partners, about going back to the Down.

"Wait - how different are things now? Like awkward silence different, or I never want to see you again different, or something in between?"

"We may not," He says, nodding. "But that doesn't sit well with me. And clearly not all of this sits well with you, if that's what you're planning. We do need more information. Especially regarding that lot. It seems their number have dropped considerably. That alone might make it wasier to assimilate."

He wants to find out all he can about the bastards that did this. Make sure they are all dead and not just waiting for the next chance to fuck up all their lives.

He shakes his head regarding his contract, or lack of one. "It's nothing as dramatic as all that. He isn't used to me. Like this. It doesn't matter that I was the man he knew, the fact is... he doesn't think he knows me any more. Trying to have a conversation is a little like pulling teeth."

The thing is, Rosita isn't as hard as Michonne, but once someone's crossed her people, she's a very hard sell on forgiveness. She's killed - murdered, she supposes, in a society that still has laws - before and she readily will again if the situation demands, which getting her hands on one of the guards from the pit absolutely will.

Things she's learned not to say. She focuses on the part she can potentially do anything about, which is the personal pieces.

"Is that normal for him? To have difficulty talking at first?"

That desire is understandable. Jacob, should he find someone who was involved in the plot to kidnap and murder so many people, to drown a whole city, will not be letting that person live. But he will be extracting every last bit of information from them before he gets rid of them.

But he's not going to advertise that either.

"No. No it isn't. He works as a therapist. So this is... new and unpleasant. Talking about how he feels is one of his strong suits. I..." she's a perfect stranger, she doesn't need his hoped, dreams, heartbreak. So he clears his throat and finishes the sentence differently from how he'd intended.

"I think it may take him some time. Grief isn't something you can fix overnight."

A therapist. Christ. No wonder he and Jesus get along, she thinks, attention pulled back again from watching around them by the hesitation, by the clearing of his throat.

"What about you?" The man checking on people, insisting the best way to deal with pain and trauma is to talk about it, having his own reaction while mentioning how Vrenille is coping when she asks. They're strangers, it's true, but sometimes that helps. Sometimes there's no pressure to answer a certain way, or feeling judged by someone cared about.

Jacob should have known she was going to ask him. He should have been aware but... well. He wasn't really thinking about himself.

"Me? I... want him to be settled. To make peace with what's happened. Whether he wants to contract with me or not, I wouldn't hold it against him. I think I might be too old for him now."

And that hurts. If they had grown old together, it would have been better, it would have been wonderful. But that isn't what has happened, and he can't change it.

She considers him - he's older than her now, she thinks, or at least has lived harder years and wears them more plainly. But not that much older. As old as Abraham might have been now, as old as Gabriel might be.

Age matters a whole lot less to her these days, but it's easy to remember that it matters a lot to some. Something around her eyes softens ever so slightly.

"That's not fair," she says, quietly. Not that she's blaming Vrenille at all, but it's just not fair on the pair of them.

"Life isn't. You and I both know that. But forcing each other into something we won't enjoy? That is worse, in my mind." He says that seriously, because for him it is very true. "We contracted because we were... close. Emotionally and physically. We aren't either, currently."

"Besides. If its something he wants in the future, then I'm here. I've no intention of getting killed again and coming back in another twenty years. At sixty? The only reason to sleep with me would be for my massive fortune and I don't think I'll have one of those."

Edited Date: 2022-10-21 10:28 am (UTC)

"Is he being a dick about it?" she asks after a few moments of navigating the trail in silence.

"Because... I mean yeah, the dying. But you didn't know this was going to happen. I haven't heard of it happening to anyone else."

"Christ, no," Jacob says, quickly trying to dispel that. Vrenille is most certainly not being a dick. He can be a sarcastic little shit, but they're normally laughing and happy when that happens. When it happened. "He's trying, very hard, to be normal. But that just makes it more unsettling. I don't think... he's been able to accept it yet. And because he hasn't accepted it, he can't accept me."

It's not an easy thing to say. But there's no blame attached, no anger. Things have changed, and they changed rapidly, horribly, and Vrenille has had to deal with that. Jacob doesn't know how to help, apart from offer encouragement when Vrneille wants it, but for the most part, it seems best to stay out of the mesmer's way.

"No one knew. If I'd died and... come back as everyone else had, I doubt there would be a problem. But that isn't what happened. There's nothing we can do about it apart from adjust. And I have... somethings that I have to work through too."