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

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It's not meant to be something that surprises her, but then again, it's the first time he's ever touched her, and it was unbidden and unexpected. The glance back tells him that, and more besides. She was expecting something else, not help, not for him to try to keep her steady. She wasn't expecting him to hurt her either. He's sure that if she thought he might try to hurt her, he'd probably be on his back right now with one of those knives to his throat- or already buried there.

But then she's on the other side of the fallen tree and nothing is said about it, no warning, no nothing. Then again, does anything need to be said?

"I know." They've both lost people. He hasn't asked about her family, friends, partners. It seems callous to do so. He wants her to share, if she feels she wants to, but to ask, and learn that everyone she loves is dead- he doesn't want that. He doesn't want to make her say it. "And I think you might be right. Everything that you should do, that you would do? It's different here, messed around with. And I'm not... I'm not the right person to speak to him about it."

She nods at his answer - she can see that. Hell, she hasn't said more than the bare bones to Jesus since they were reunited, and he hasn't brought it up at all with her; they each have their piece of it to deal with, and all the sharpest edges are aimed at each other or themselves, so they just keep moving forward instead.

It must be so much worse when there's a more formal partnership involved. More direct influence and expectation on each other's life, and that's before the contracts even enter into it.

"You remember enough you still love him?" she asks, because she's still a little fuzzy on how the whole memory thing works, and she'd rather ask than assume with this one.

Moving forward, dragging their deadweight behind him. Jacob doesn't want to drag this, he doesn't want any more pressing down on his shoulders. He wants to find a way to forgive himself for all his sins, for his mistakes, and let go of it. But he's not sure how he can. Not when there's so much blood on his hands. The people he killed directly. The people Jack killed. The people who died in the Pit because he didn't know the right way of saving them.

But the talk is of Vrenille, as they reach a little shallow stream, large stones just peaking out from the surface as steps across. The sound of the water is... peaceful. It helps him banish those negative thoughts.

"I don't know if love is a memory, or if it's something else somewhere in you. But I never stopped or lost it. The fact was just... in some part of me I didn't know about."

Rosita doesn't find any joy in the blood on her hands, human or walker, but she refuses to feel bad about it either. Maybe that's the tradeoff: the weight she carries with her doesn't include any of the people she's killed, only what comes with still being alive.

"That doesn't make any sense to me," she tells him, not unkindly, but not particularly carefully either. It's true, for her: "You can't love someone you don't know exists."

She hesitates at the water's edge, checking up and down it to be sure it really is as shallow as it looks, that the water is clear, and then checking the way across.

Jacob knows he did what he had to do, to try and save lives, some people had to die. There's no doubt about that. But like Rosita, he never asked for the life that he's got, never wanted it, it just happened to him. And once you're an assassin, you can't ever stop. You know too much about the world, you know too much about how other people want to hurt others, control them, enslave them. If you leave, you turn your back on all of those people who need you. He just can't do that. But it doesn't mean he doesn't dream he could have had a different life. Duplicity offers him some respite.

"Oh, you're right. But when he walked into that cave, and I saw him again? It came back like a flood. Like it was never gone- like I hadn't been gone." He explains, "That's why it feels like it was always there."

And of course, if he doesn't remember something, he won't know until Vrenille says it - and Vrenille isn't talking to him right now.

She shakes her head, and steps out onto the first rock, moving quickly and competently across, good arm out to balance.

"Space is probably best," she has to agree, "Even just for a little while. Let things settle, let things pass. But I am sorry."

"Thank you." He knows that it will settle, things will work out. Somehow.

Most of his memories are coming back, their discussion in the Pit, his talks with other people, what happened before the kidnappings, the life that he had before he di- went home. He doesn't feel like he's died. He knew he came close when Jack had him prisoner, and those days and the days in the Pit still feel confused and interchangeable. But he's sure he remembers things about Duplicity as well as he can be expected to, with the strange passage of time.

She doesn't need his help, the stream is hardly more than a few inches deep and the stones seem sturdy. He follows her, listening to the noises of the forest around them, the rustle of the leaves, the birdsong. But beyond, there are the sounds of the city. He likes that. Being apart but still close.

"The world must sound a lot different, for you. No trains and factories."

"The old world where I'm from has been dead for years," she answers, waiting for him where the trail picks up on the other side. She keeps glancing at the water while they're beside it, then checks around them again as they move on. The longer they're out, the easier it becomes both to relax and, as a result, sink further into the old habits she developed over time to watch for walkers.

"It's hard to tell how long exactly but it's been over ten years since the big cities went down. Everywhere I know of ran out of gas a few years after that? Makes it easier to hear the walkers." A beat that lasts a few easy steps. "Makes it loud here. That's taking some getting used to. And how many people there are."

"I suppose after that time, it's hard to remember what anything sounds like." He says, knowing how hard it is now to remember the voice of his father. But he's been dead for over twenty years now, and Jacob isn't too bothered about that- nothing the old bastard had to say was worth remembering.

"London had four million people, last time anyone tried to count." He says, with a soft laugh as they continue their walk, enjoying the peace and the quiet, making this far more like where he'd grown up, the countryside outside of London. "There's a house, someone gave me, somewhere on the outskirts of town. It's like this 'round there- trees and nature, no neighbours nearby. You would have liked her. She was a lot like you. A survivor in a dead world."

Survivors like her bring in a mixed reaction; she tends to feel more comfortable around them for a variety of reasons, but also more wary for the same reasons. Survivors - even Jesus, with his big blue eyes and his soft smile, his eagerness to help - are survivors because they play for keeps, they're ready to be fucked over and to fuck someone else over if that's what's necessary. They don't share well as a rule, and they're slow to trust and quick to the kill.

Some more than others of course, and she's at least curious. "That'd be the first I've heard of anyone remotely similar. The undead, too?" She doesn't even know what answer she's hoping for, here.

"I grew up in Dallas. It was a pretty big city, couple million people, so it's all come back pretty fast. But I don't... like it, anymore."

Jacob isn't testing her for any sort of reaction, he simply misses Ellie. She was a good kid. She had suffered a lot but she always was ready to smile, to have fun, to eat until she couldnt eat any more, and she let him listen to her cassettes. Maybe that's something too, in Rosita's world.

"I think so. She... got bit by one. But somehow it didn't do anything to her. It was a big deal."

She'd been tough, and happy, but so scared too. So frightened about what her own people would do to her. Poke her and prod her and hurt her.

"I... used to like it a lot. Now I'm not so sure. Its nice to be away from it."

Whoever this mystery girl is, she was right to be afraid: Rosita doesn't even know her and hearing that she didn't have a reaction to being bitten makes her eyes sharpen significantly. Immunity is unheard of, back home. Everyone has it, everyone can be turned by it, everyone will be turned by it.

If someone were immune, god knows how anyone would react.

"Tends to be, when something no one else survives or has a cure for ends up not affecting someone. World's a different place between hope and no hope." Her voice is stiff, even hard, when she says it.

"It's nice when you get a choice to be away from it. I'm glad you have that."

"She was only a kid. The world hadn't been a good place to her before she'd been bitten and she knew it would get much worse." He says that with a protective edge to his voice, head turning towards Rosita. Ellie isn't here anymore, he can only hope that wherever she is, she's safe, protected, and happy, but he can't ever know for sure unless she returns. He almost wishes she would- Duplicity, for the most part, is better than the place she came from.

"One day I might get to spend more time there." He says, "Wasn't interested much before, I was happy at Vrenille's place. But you know how the laws work here. It's not technically mine. Nor is the Eagle or the Arena. They're his, right now."

"World doesn't care any more about kids in the end than it does anyone else," she says, but the edge has gone, and there's something else troubled there, something she tucks behind the shake of her head. Doesn't matter.

The world is just the world. It doesn't owe anyone anything, doesn't pull any punches for anyone. She catches his eye looking back at her and raises an eyebrow - what about it? - but it's not worth an argument as far as she's concerned. Ellie isn't here. No kids are. No cures are.

Just them. "What're the Eagle and the Arena?"

She's right. The world doesn't care about any of them, it will just keep spinning. But to him that just sounds like all the more reason to protect each other, protect the people that need it most. Ellie hadn't needed him to be a protector or a father or anything like that- she'd needed a friend. He hopes that he was a good one.

It's easier to talk about the other things, there's no lump in his throat.

"The Arena is a gym, of sorts. Mostly it's a place where we host fights and let people learn how to defend themselves. I manage it. The Eagle- that's my pub. Found it, cleaned it up, made it decent enough for people to enjoy going to. The joke was that it was going to be my retirement project." He grins at her as they walk, "I suppose now it can be."

"Like actually learn how to defend themselves, or just get trounced with some pointers thrown in?" she asks, not out of judgment necessarily, but just out of an awareness that fights go a lot of different ways. Training goes a lot of different ways.

She'll have to send Jesus to look into it. She eyes the grin, lets her eyes trace over his face, finding again the points where she can recognize the much younger man she met before.

Then she rolls her eyes. "Please, you're not retired. Still here, aren't you?"

"That depends on what they need to learn." Jacob says with a broad grin, just the same as it was when he was a young man getting into fights as the only way he knew to let off steam, the only thing he felt he was good at. Now he's older, his job is to train people to be assassins, to protect others to protect themselves.

He tries not to think of the students he's failed, but his smile does drop visibly and he looks away from her, through the trees.

"Here it's difficult to know what's coming. Kidnappers or dragons, a flood of freezing water. All you can do is try to give people skills and hope they can put those together in a way that helps them stay safe."

"I'm here. But I'm retired." Retired from doing some of the things he was trying to do before, taking a step back. Letting those with more energy and more eyes do what they can. "I'm not old, but I'm not as good as I was. I can't keep up."

Jack proved that.

It's not that she doesn't recognize that there's something there. She does. It's not that she doesn't understand that it's necessary to be aware of limitations. It is.

But she's a survivor, and she's absolutely not capable of admitting defeat for the sake of defeat; she cannot stop fighting for anything less than being completely physically incapable of doing so, cannot let herself think of it as okay. It's not. Full stop.

So she snorts. "Please. That just means you get mean, not quit," she answers, stepping a bit wide of the trail to take a look at him.

He's shorter than her, but twice as broad, almost thrice; accustomed to being strong, accustomed to being able to match blow for blow and keep going, she'd wager. Something she's never been able to do. "If you want a vacation that's different, we get to have that here. Sometimes. But if not, it just means adapt."

She has a point. He might be older now but he isn't useless. He just needs to know his limits. He's not going to roll over and die, God no, but being an assassin is a young person's game. Climbing rooftops, working twenty hour days, running across London with broken ribs? That's not something he does so well anymore.

"I've been here two years. Or I had been. I know that's not as long as some. It's not a vacation. It's just a change. I'm not sure it's as hard a life as what you've had. But it's not a holiday."

Not physically, not emotionally.

"But you're right. You have to adapt to it. If you don't, you'll struggle, and they will pubish you if you don't meet your quota, if you don't get your contracts, if you're a bad dominant or a disobedient submissive."

She shrugs a bit - she agrees it's not exactly Disney world around here, and she would much rather be home where her people are, but she's in a good position even if part of that is down to her being assigned Dominant.

But she knows better than to argue with experience blindly. He's been here two years. She's been here barely three months. She could stand to shut her mouth and listen from time to time, even if she disagrees. Especially if she disagrees.

"I'm just saying..." She blows out a breath, not a sigh, but a placeholder. "Adapt. When you stop adapting, that's when life gets you." She looks over at him, dark eyes somber. "Don't let life get you."

He nods. "I'll try not to. I've kept one step in front of life and death-"

He pauses, because he didn't, did he? He snorts a soft, mirthless little laughing then waves the thought away. She can probably continue the rest in her own head.

"Trust me, I'm not about to let it all go arse-up. This place still needs me, people here still need me. I'm not about to make the same mistakes I did before."

He catches himself just as she raises an eyebrow, because no, he didn't. But he acknowledges it and she sees no reason to rub it in just now, so she lets it go.

"I don't trust," she says dismissively. Nothing against him, but she's learned better. "You got a system in mind for staying focused?"

"Not being twenty-three." He explains, and while it's a bit flippant, how do you explain to someone that you've lived for nearly twenty years in the most dangerous job in London, and you've not died yet? There's no set of guidance he can explain to her, not quickly and easily anyway. He can go through the spiel he does for trainees, but he can't actually do that either, because she's not from a world where it will make sense.

"I do. And you'll just have to not trust me on that."

She doesn't exactly roll her eyes at the response but she doesn't exactly not, either.

Still it's fair and she doesn't press. He doesn't actually owe her anything, even if he's operating under some kind of notion that he does; he hasn't asked her for anything.

"Well that's your business," she says, and shrugs. "But I do appreciate the apology, and I appreciate the view."

"I hope that I can show you I mean it," He says, in reply to the bit about the apology. "It's important to say it, but the words mean nothing if you don't back it up with action. I am not volunteering to be kidnapped again but... I've learnt a few things since then."

Its not been a long time for her of course, but for him it's been a lifetime.

"We should probably head back towards the city. We'll start loosing the light soon enough."