Montezuma [Prp]

[Liam]

Liam was stretched out comfortably in a patio chair, lounging in the mid-afternoon shade of an old oak, one of the perks of the new property. There was a dab of sunscreen on the bridge of his nose, an opened book, The Jazz Book: Ragtime to The 21st Century arched over his chest, rising and falling with each breath he took.

It was a nice nap, really, except for that damn screeching sound. He snored loudly, rubbing his face and subsequently smearing the lotion over his cheeks. What a god awful, ear piercing noise.

So familiar too. He groaned, rolling onto his side and knocking the book off his chest and to the ground. Liam groped blindly for it, giving up the search only to cover his ears in a vain attempt at blocking out the sound. The sun was still high in the sky when he finally relented and opened his eyes, but soon enough a dark figure blocked out the harsh rays, wings spread wide.

There was no mistaking that figure, larger than any bird of prey in the United States, excluding only the condor. "Jethro?" He rubbed his eyes again, just to make sure he wasn't dreaming. No, no he wasn't, in his dreams she was the carving above the bed they had once shared, diving towards him, hard eyes, beak tearing into him. He erupted from his chair, hair disheveled, his heart suddenly racing, expecting just that to happen. Any moment and she would drop from the sky.

And he would be faced with the mistakes he had made. Liam held his breath, head tilted into the glare of the sun.

[Jethro]

It had taken her a long time to find him.

Searching and searching, it never seemed to end. Jethro had long become a part of the shadows since an event that she preferred to call that day. The day she avoided-- until now. After discovering the location of the old fox, she had made way to pay her old friend a long-time-coming visit. And Jethro had found it only fitting that she should arrive on the anniversary of his departure, however many years ago that had been. She didn't expect him to remember-- and would hardly care if he did. But it seemed to appeal to her more dark sense of humor.

Cue the Jaws music in her head as she circled up above. Liam crosses into the crosshairs of her vision as a small, insignificant smudge across the landscape. No different than any other smudge there, other than the invisible bullseye that she'd mentally placed on his head. She remains there for however long-- circling, watching, waiting, and finally deciding that she had stalked her prey long enough to call into the air-- once, twice, thrice. And somewhere in the midst of it all the man moved, scrambling from his chair and looking up towards the sun. In a golden-eyed glare that he could not see, she returned the look.

There would be a final sound to echo through the land, one that Liam would be unable to tell whether it was a Honey, I'm home, or You can run, but you can't hide. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was neither.

Wings angled and she took her dive towards the surface in what Liam might interpret as his realized fate-- but instead, slowing speed and changing direction, the massive bird took her place on a large branch that hung somewhere very close to the chair that he had been sitting in. Talons gripped the branch, sinking into the flesh of the tree with little effort. And if the man had at all swung around to follow the golden eagle, his green gaze would be met with that of a much more harsh mixture of venom and gold. And regardless of what he would say, regardless of what he would do, in a few mere seconds the raptor would be off again, leaving deep wounds in her perch with her departure.

It would take her a minute to get back into the woods. Only two minutes to shift back, and less than one to quickly get back into her clothes. Jethro does, as she always has, favored anything that was easiest to get in and out of quickly. Her most favored articles of clothing are those which many would find questionable; something that one would only assume would be worn by a foreigner. Today her wardrobe of choice had included leggings, and a medium charcoal robe that required no more effort to put on other than slipping it over her head and wrapping a wide black cloth belt around her hips. Black-ink tree branches crept over her shoulder-- and more masked by her sleeves, escaping from under the fabric on the top of her left hand. She threw her hair back to mask what she could over her shoulders. Her eyes seem to blend in with her skin-- off white at a glance and only a few shades lighter than her flesh.

She could have easily blended in with snow in wintertime.

She sets off towards his house again. Time seems to pass by much faster as she carefully weaves through the trees, eventually meeting her destination to find Liam still outside, against a tree. She makes a slow stop, standing stark still and silent with her hands at her side. An empty, sightless stare is cast in his direction, but it's too clear that shes staring somewhere much further beyond him.

"Long time no see." Her voice is quiet and smooth, almost has an echo to it, as if she hasn't spoken a word in years.

Because she hasn't-- not to him.

[Liam]

He races after her, stumbling barefoot, and then clearing the bushes at the edge of his property with the grace of a hurtler, of a fox pursued by the hounds. But even his long legs can't keep up with the speed of a golden eagle and he finds himself panting against a locust tree, thin shade dappling his face in light and dark.

She disappears, lingering only in his mind. Jethro is just as untouchable in the skies as she was in his dreams.

"Damnit." Soft flesh slips against the thorny bark of the tree and Liam splays a hand across his knee, hunched over and fighting to catch his breath. There is no way of tracking her, in human form or fox and he resigns himself to loss before he's even begun.

The shifter turns back for home, runs his fingers haphazardly through red hair, muttering something. Vindictive women, liver eating eagles--a plane ticket never used and a home abandoned. He could have gotten rid of the carving somehow, moved to another bedroom, but Liam didn't think he could ever get rid of her scent, how it seemed to linger in the hallways and the dust even after three years abroad.

And his evening may have ended like that, southern blues, a rare dip into his liquor cabinet mourning lost loves and lost opportunities, but her voice catches her ear, and the man twists around, staring into empty eyes that see him, see all that he is and still manage to look through him.

"Long time no see."

He doesn't know what to say, swallows harshly and tries to stop the gooseflesh that trails up his body. Liam reaches to pull the crystal necklace from his shirt, metal and rock warm against his skin. "You left this." He undoes the chain with shaking hands, usually so sure and confident, and steps forward until only a foot of space divides them, holding it out in hopes that she won't burn him. It had been the only thing to reassure him in some way that Jethro had left of her own accord and not been kidnapped, raped, or tortured by some demon of his past. He had held onto it for all these years, longer than they had been together. At first the shifter had hoped he could return it, but as the months dragged on and his search turned up no results it became the last thing he really had of Jethro.

"I looked for you, I thought--" So many things, worries and theories that had driven him mad in that dust filled apartment. "Why are you here, after so long?"

His voice is soft, green eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of sun, usually sincere. He wants to understand.

[Jethro]

Jethro stands perfectly still, like a statue made of flesh and bone, as if the force of a thousand men couldn't make her budge. She blinks once or twice, but she may as well have closed her eyes. She wasn't using them. Instead, she's listening-- straining her ears for the sounds of his breathing, for the sound of his hands moving from their position. She knows he is reaching for a chain around his neck, she knows that chain is strangely familiar. That the item hanging from it is familiar, that the pattern which her brain calls swirls of what is silver in color and made of metal. These things that she cannot see, that once upon a time-- had meant the world to her. But she still doesn't react, and this doesn't change when Liam takes a more direct approach.

"You left this,"

Jethro says nothing.

And as he moves closer and closer and closer, Jethro still doesn't move. Her head doesn't change position, her posture remains upright. And more importantly-- her eyes do not move. A foot of space is not a lot of space, but blind eyes stare through him as if he had never been there to start with. There isn't the slightest indication that she even knows that he's holding her necklace out to her. That is, until, Jethro raises one hand-- not to take it, but rather to touch it. She slides the side of one finger under the chain, until the stick of quartz is resting somewhere close to the middle joint of her finger. And then, her hand moves back to its place by her side. "Keep it." Though her voice holds no true tone, there is still an air of finality to it.

She doesn't want it. It's not hers anymore anyways. She had left it behind, so many years ago, and he still has it with him. It twists the knife that had lodged itself somewhere in her chest long ago, clawed away at a much colder heart.

"I looked for you, I thought--"

There's a break, and Jethro still says nothing.

"Why are you here, after so long?"

She's silent for a moment more. "Today," A pause, to indicate that this day is unlike a normal day-- "As of today, it has been thirty-five years." Thirty five years of nothing but regression. Thirty five years-- so much time, time wasted and time thrown away. It seemed that time itself had stopped existing after the first few. After another few seconds her eyes snap up to take a new place, staring at his shoulders instead. She didn't need to say what it's been thirty five years since, because she knows that he knows. And she'd leave if he tried to pretend that he didn't. On a second thought...

She takes a step away from him, eyes moving back somewhere at his torso.

"I should leave." Because she doesn't want to talk. Doesn't know what to say or how to say it. Doesn't know how to admit that somewhere he had left a jagged wound that she couldn't repair.

His soft tone is lost to her, whatever desire to understand is unknown. She finds it impossible to admit that she came here because she somehow still gives a damn-- finds it impossible to admit that she had been actively looking for him. And would never admit that she had torn up her calendar after seeing what date it was.

If she hadn't been important enough to stay for, he shouldn't have been important enough to look for.

But above all, she wouldn't admit that she had come here in hopes that maybe, after given so much time to forget about her, he would let her get a foot in the door before he slammed it in her face... again.

[Liam]

Liam is a master at looking at something and perceiving only that which he wants to, he steps forward again, until he can nearly feel the warmth radiating off his skin, the woodsy, herbal smell that clings to her and her clothes.

He smiles, nervous, and loosens his grip on the chain, allowing the thin links to settle over the pad of her finger, because even after all these years he knows, he knows what's important and although in many ways had never completely understood the way she saw, he knew what made her smile, the textures, the words he could craft with his tongue and the detailed pictures he could paint for her. The memories come rushing back and hope leaps in his heart. He's just about to drop the necklace in her hand when she speaks--cold, detached, a shock of chilly air in this warmth.

"Keep it."

"But it's yours." He protests, brows furrowed and something genuinely broken in his tone, boyish, confused. "I kept it for you," Liam, for once is stripped of the cocky bravado that in any other situation makes him. He is not brave here, he is not strong or confident. He is an old man with an old heart with many hurts that is trying so hard to peer past the surface and see the things that made him fall in love.

Jethro stands as still and impenetrable as the Tower of London and all Liam can see is the things he hated. The woman who felt no emotion, who saw all and nothing. He wants to see the woman who knows what its like to catch an air current over the Rocky Mountains, who has skimmed the waters of a great lake and eaten the flesh of salmon.

The quartz dangles in mid air for a moment longer before Liam takes it back into his palm, head dipped slightly, eyes closed in acceptance. He carefully positions the little crystal around his neck, tucking it back under his shirt, and the weight on his chest feels heavier than it has in years.

"Today," "As of today, it has been thirty-five years."

He blinks in recognition and its that easy for him to fall back into that grinning mask, to wrap himself in the protection of smirks and lashes back the only way he knows how. "It's been that long?" As if he hadn't felt the ache of the years so keenly. "No one ever told me how quick time seems to go by when you get old."

"I should leave."

And just as easily, the persona falters and breaks, leaving that old man with the worn heart who just can't understand. But he wants to and that's why he reaches out, places a tentative hand on her shoulder, stopping her before she can turn away, "Don't," Asking, pleading, even a hint of anger in his voice that wants to wrap around this enigmatic figure, chain her down so he can finally get some sort of hold on her. "Jeth please, I haven't seen you in over three decades. I thought--" He flings both hands outwards, either to the side of him in frustration, "I thought you disappeared off the face off the earth, that you flew into the sun!" Her vanishing act seemed nothing short of magic, although Liam suspects she has simply been hiding out in the wilderness in her eagle form, prey to none, victim only to the basic needs of food and shelter.

"I thought you were gone."

[Jethro]

It's the nervous smile that she takes a mental note of, stores it off somewhere to the side. She unintentionally crushes whatever hope he has, speaking in the cold and guarded tone that he had always hated so much. Jethro knows that it used to bother him-- the way she was so detached from everything, the way that things never seemed to affect her the way that they should-- plainly speaking, that there were times when her behavior seemed so void of anything even vaguely human. Once upon a time she may have felt bad for it, but now it's her weapon of choice. Sharpened to a fine blade and cutting through the air harshly-- slicing away at whatever thoughts may be crossing into his mind. To skin and peel the flesh of the memories, to make them go away. It's a tense moment between the two, her necklace becoming the only barrier that separated them. And the longer the silence remains, the longer the burning image of the empty apartment the day she left came back into her head. She had left her necklace on the bed, thrown somewhere in the middle as she shifted and took her leave out the window.

How much longer had that window stayed open, before he had come home to close it?

"But it's yours. I kept it for you,"

There's confusion in his voice, something torn and void of his usual personality. And for that, she can't say she complains. Instead she tilts her head away from it. "Hardly." She highly doubts that he had held onto it all of this time for her-- that he had worn a necklace with a quartz stick belonging to the same person he left behind for over thirty years just to give it back. And she knows enough to see the truth behind whatever mask and lie he was presenting towards her. Eyes narrow accusingly. The one he had known who had flown the mountains and skimmed the lakes had lost herself somewhere in the peaks.

She feels the threat of the small crystal subside when Liam places it around his neck again.

"It's been that long? No one ever told me how quick time seems to go by when you get old."

The sudden personality change is a mask if she's ever seen one, and blind eyes stare straight through it, clawing at it and attempting to make it go away again. She doesn't like it. Lip twitches in what might have turned into her baring her teeth like an angry dog, spitting out some harsh comment about how she was glad that time passed by so fast and easy for him. But she bites her tongue, instead glaring past him.

And then there's a hand on her shoulder just as she's going to move. The warmth travels through the fabric and into her skin like a poison, and she immediately cringes from the touch, if anything attempting to slide away from his grip.

"Don't,"

"Why."

"Jeth please, I haven't seen you in over three decades. I thought--"

The hand is removed and relief washes through her. She can handle being a foot apart from him. But she's not ready for his touch again, and some shredded part of her in the back of her mind twists and screams and begs to leave him behind.

"I thought you disappeared off the face off the earth, that you flew into the sun!"

Flew into the sun. Well there's an interesting one. "That wouldn't be entirely inaccurate." She answers after a moment, angling her body once more so that her shoulders were squared and she was standing properly in front of him. "I could say the same to you." Her tone isn't harsh nor is it soft. It's monotone, void of any emotion and lacking the heart required to give the accusation the extra push.

"I thought you were gone."

She pauses for a moment, hesitates, and finally moves. A statue come to life, she shifts her weight, head tilted downward and eyes cast to the Earth's floor. Instead she focuses on her hand at her side, the branches that creep over the top-- the one point that dared sneak past her knuckle, half way up her middle finger. Anything was better than looking at him. But after a moment of staring at the ink on her hand, she finally answers. "So did I." Her tone felt unusually soft for her. She had spent too long alone in his apartment, too long waking up every morning with every hope in the world that he would be home and going to bed every night crushed and sorely disappointed.

"You left." She says it after another moment, bringing her attention back to him. "You slammed the door in my face and never came home. You didn't even send one letter. Nothing." There's an edge of hurt to her voice, leaking away from a crack that he had created years and years ago. "You left." And she had tried to rationalize it for days, weeks, months. Had tried to come up with some reason that he would have done that to her without the outcome becoming her biggest paranoia. But she had come up empty handed in the search for logic. "I couldn't wait anymore. Every day-- It was..." Painful. But she wouldn't say that to him.

[Liam]

"Why."

She cringes and Liam feels her pain reverberate through his finger tips, the frank knowledge that she does not want him touching her. He withdraws, hackles obviously ruffled and stuffs his hands down in his pockets to resist further temptation. "Because I haven't seen you in thirty five years." Liam can't help the snap in his voice, the poised tenseness of his body that is every bit a fox trapped in his den.

"That wouldn't be entirely inaccurate." "I could say the same to you."

Her words lack the emotional sting that his have, but none the less they dig their burrs into his skin, make him feel shame and anger in a boiling crock pot of feelings he hasn't stirred in so long.

"So did I." "You left." "You slammed the door in my face and never came home. You didn't even send one letter. Nothing."

Dark ink flashes in his vision, curling up her middle finger, stark against her pale skin, and his curiosity (damnable thing that it is) rises with peeked interest. The shifter has to remind himself to keep his hands in his pockets. She is not his anymore, much as he would like to dispute that fact, not his to touch or hold.

Everything in him wants to object, to challenge her accusations and defend himself, but he can't argue so effectively with the cold truth. "I was going to come home, I--" His throat closes around the words and Liam clears it awkwardly, a broad, rough sound in all these rather pointed sayings. "I brought you back some things, but you weren't there." As if he could hardly expect her to be there after nearly three years, as if the items he had picked out so carefully mattered in the least. A turquoise ring, the stone smooth and the ring it's self inlaid with intricate carvings that he knew she would run her fingers over. A dagger (as if she needed one), from some war or another, if the old hag that had sold it to him was telling the truth. And many others that he had packed away in some box years ago and hidden away in one of those ugly storage container facilities that dotted the interstate.

"You carved an eagle above our bed," He makes a point to say our, to drive home what she lost, "With what? Your finger nails?" Liam, in some way, has always wondered. A steak knife stolen from the kitchen, nails shifted into an eagle's talons? He thinks it the later, as Jethro did little in rage or misery that was not supplemented by her animal half.

"I couldn't wait anymore. Every day-- It was..."

It has never occurred to Liam how long she had stayed in their apartment, how long she spent tossing and turning, grasping for warmth that wasn't there--that would never come back. He can remember more than a few sleepless nights of his own, but such things were usually quieted with good liquor, a pretty girl. If only for a small time, the breadth of a good night's sleep. He consoled himself with the thought that Jethro wouldn't want him, other women or not, and gritted his teeth so he would spare them the hurt of being called another's name.

A habit that had only taken a few years to beat back, to silence in the portion of his mind that remembered sweet, bitter things that had no place in his life anymore.

He breaks the tense air, hopes that in this time she hasn't tried to leave again. "Can I see?" Liam allows the eagle shifter her space, wary of those talons. His finger tips ghost at the air between them and her hand, "Roots or vines?" He asks, testing unsteady waters.

[Jethro]

"Because I haven't seen you in thirty five years."

It's not good enough of a reason to stay. But not a bad enough reason to leave. Her response to the snap in his tone is little more than her eyes narrowing at whatever they were pointed at, considering this entire meeting. Reunion. Whatever this was supposed to be and whatever it was turning out to be-- Jethro didn't know what she had come here truly expecting in the first place. She can feel where his hand had been on her shoulder-- a cold yet burning spot where skin had met skin.

"I was going to come home, I-- I brought you back some things, but you weren't there."

She frowns. He was going to come home, huh? This earns him a rather distasteful look from her. She had stayed there for a year, and then some. Had spent night after night in an apartment that didn't belong to her, barely able to survive with what little money she had. She could have moved somewhere else, could have taken off in flight much sooner, could have left it all behind and could have escaped the residual anger that being stuck in that place had given her. Hardly ever able to sleep at night, hardly even shifting in fear that if he came home she wouldn't be there to bear witness.

But he never did come home. And at the time-- it seemed like he had no real intention to. "How long were you gone?" She takes a step or two closer to him, her voice taking a more offended tone. "I stayed in that apartment for almost a year and a half, Liam Fitzpatrick." A heavy sigh follows-- because she doesn't want to have to recollect all of that. "Do not tell me that you were going to come home-- don't tell me that, after you spent years without bothering trying to contact me."

She had convinced herself somewhere down the road that he just didn't care.

"You carved an eagle above our bed, with that? Your finger nails?"

She lifts her hands to look at them for a moment, shifts her talons only half way. Shiny and black, curved and hooked and sharp. She pointed them at him, and shrugged. What other way was where? Some dumb ineffective steak knife? She had carved it above their bed for a number of reasons. One, as a giant "fuck you" to him if he ever came home. Two, because it would at least offer evidence that she left. That she hadn't been murdered or worse. She knows somewhere in the back of her mind that he had probably gone back to whatever life he had before she came along and stole him away from it, while she took to the mountains.

While he had been in the company of another pretty girl, she had been crushing the skulls of foxes out in the hills. Funny how irony worked.

There's a silence, one that's tense but not too uncomfortable for a woman who had spent almost half of her life in silence.

"Can I see? Roots or vines?"

Jethro decides not to actually answer that. She finally moves from her position, taking whatever amount of steps forward to close the distance between them until she was much closer, extending her hand out and using the other to force her sleeve up, to reveal that the tattoos went much farther up than just her hand. They crept over her shoulders, around her ribs, and the roots went down to her thighs. But for now his view was limited to only her arm and her hand.

If he wanted to see the rest, he would have to ask very nicely.

[Liam]

"How long were you gone?" "I stayed in that apartment for almost a year and a half, Liam Fitzpatrick."

He bows his head slightly when she uses his full name, like a chastised boy, eyes low to the ground and guilty. "Longer than you stayed in the apartment," If only to spite her, to frustrate her as much as she's hurt him he evades the answer, purposely vague. It didn't matter how long he had been gone--after all it's not as if they had barely missed each other in some romantic movie cliche. There were no dashing through the streets, asking the cab driver to "Stop, pull over here!"

They had been worlds apart and Liam had only tried to call once or twice, blaming old pay phones for his own lack of will.

"Do not tell me that you were going to come home-- don't tell me that, after you spent years without bothering trying to contact me."

"I tried like hell to find you when I came back," He seethes, looking down at her with narrowed eyes. "Obviously you didn't want to be found." She had been well the range of even his best contacts and Liam had gone so far as to contact a voodoo witch he knew to do a location spell. No luck. He considered it half a miracle that Jethro was still alive, a lot could happen in thirty five years, and perhaps it was a miracle that he found himself among the living as well.

Stranger things had happened he supposed.

She shifts her nails in answer and Liam sees his reflect in the shine of those talons. "Lovely workmanship," He remarks with more than a smidgeon of bitterness. That damn carving had been etched into his mind--and his subconscious for several years. The shifter knew exactly what eagles and harpys did to cute little foxes and remembers thinking how glad he was they had outside an old club rather in the trees or some barren meadow.

Not to say Jethro might not still slash his throat open, but he liked to think she had a little better control over herself than that. Couldn't go killing all your ex-boyfriends now, things like that got messy.

What Liam doesn't expect is for her to actually comply, willingly bare the inked skin to him without further cajoling. She reveals that the trail of black winds up from her middle finger all the way up her arm, and over her shoulder, disappearing back into the folds of her clothes.

"Branches," He amends, voice soft and thought filled. Withered branches, black and twisted, something that spoke of pain, enough to wound something so great and steady as a tree. "There's more of it," His finger tips itch with the desire to reach out the pull up her robe, to sate his curiosity, but Liam has learned to respect Jethro's personal space, or at the very least, to respect her claws.

"I'd like to see, if you don't mind."

Something tells him he has a better chance of gleaming more from her tattoo than he does the woman herself.

[Jethro]

Jethro, as perceptive as she is, finds it hard to understand how he's been able to survive over seventy years of life behaving like an overgrown seven year old. She keeps silent for the moment, staring numbly through him with gritted teeth. He's spiteful-- and Jethro knows why, understands fully that he had been hurt too, but the shifter found that she couldn't give too many fucks over someone who had slammed the door in her face-- left for years, all because of a brief hesitation. It had been so trivial and so stupid that even Jethro couldn't find herself to be too upset over his childish departure until months later when she had finally accepted the fact that he was never coming home.

"I tried like hell to find you when I came back, obviously you didn't want to be found."

His words rang true, and Jethro finds that she isn't the least bit ashamed of it. Her head tilts to the side in consideration of them. She herself had performed a spell, to conceal herself for as long as she could. She hadn't wanted to be found just as he hadn't wanted to stay. And in her eyes, her quiet and carefully veiled departure had been the better form of revenge. "I'm sure that's what you would like to tell yourself." Her tone is covered in a sheet of ice, and she's quickly becoming annoyed with his petty man-child remarks.

In their time apart she had done many things-- after living as her animal for god knows how long she had finally decided to emerge once again. Had dug up her saved money through the years, had found an apartment and found a job at a breeding facility. And with enough money, had done the one thing she never thought that she would. She had gotten a tattoo-- one that seemed to tell tale of her entire history and her entire future all at the same time. And now here she was-- showing just a fraction of it to the man who had created a portion of the story.

"Branches,"

His voice is soft, almost a whisper. Jethro fights back the urge to respond with "Einstein." in a dramatic whisper of her own.

"There's more of it,"

She knew where this was going.

"I'd like to see, if you don't mind."

Bingo.

She's quiet for a moment or two, thoughtful. Considers it-- and finally decides that there is no positive or negative outcome, and that at this point, the differences between "yes" and "no" seemed to blur together. "It's nothing special," she answers, maybe because she had never seen it. Maybe because she had never been able to fully comprehend the amount of detail and effort that both the man who designed it and the man who put it on her body had put into the creation. She considers again leaving it at that, denying him the opportunity, but ends up saying "Fine." instead.

In a movement that seemed all too practiced she's able to slip from the clothing with ease, all ribs, hip and spine-- paper-white pale skin in harsh contrast to the warmer colors around them. She felt completely calm, unbothered with the fact that she was standing shirtless outside. She had never found her own body to be something too protective over, never found something like her own flesh and bone to be personal enough to care any. With one hand she sweeps her longer hair over her shoulder towards her front and lets it drape over one side of her chest-- turns to show Liam the artwork on her back that had cost many hours and much money to complete.

She remembers when she had initially gone in-- a friend from work who had been well known in the community to be a great artist, design it for her. And she had entered a tattoo parlor, listening to the man with the gun comment on how it was a pretty colossal piece for someone going under the needle for the first time, had said that she must be pretty brave. He'd asked later what the tattoo was for-- she had responded with "Life." He had looked at her oddly, said something like "Looks pretty dead to me." And Jethro had simply nodded. He asked about the stopwatch-- asked if she wanted him to correct the numbers, and ultimately ignored the request and told him to do the tattoo.

Some things were better left unsaid. Some things are better written or drawn, or painted across a blank canvas.

[Liam]

"I'm sure that's what you would like to tell yourself."

It is easier to wrap himself in this anger than to accept his mistakes, what could have been, and he rationalizes her objections away under the pretense that she did not understand. That the love he felt for her was unmatched and weak. She wouldn't have gone, couldn't bare to feel change, even if had stayed at her side every moment.

"It's nothing special," "Fine."

Liam likes to think he is not a man controlled by sentimentality, but he feels something stir in him at the sight of his old lover, torso bare and unguarded before him. Someone who he had been so intimate with, who he laid in bed with and traced the avenues of her body with reverence, described each freckle and scar to in detail and kissed when she smiled in return.

He doesn't keep his hands to himself this time and can't help but reach out, tracing the lines of the tree with his finger tips, calloused from years of playing the guitar, pressed over the key's of a flute, the strings of a cello.

The tattoo paints an awful picture, the withered, dead trunk, life choked out of it by heavy chains bound to a broken stop watch, hands bent and the numbers jumbled into an indiscernible mess. Disaster had struck, it shattered the clock and rendered time, so orderly and ever present, into disorder, to chaos. Liam knew how to read art and had always been especially fascinated by those pieces created by artists in the midst of their greatest grief. Picasso's blue period, Frida Kahlo's self portraits; Jethro's tattoo struck him as nothing less than just that.

Lips drawn into a tight line he drew away, "Why would you...to ink yourself with misery, forever," To be reminded of it each and every day when you looked down at your hands. It's not something Liam can even begin to comprehend, but then Jethro has always escaped his comprehension in some way or another.

He grasps her shoulder harshly, spinning her around without warning. The unhealthy skinniness he glimpsed when she first undressed is in full display now, stomach unnaturally flat and ribs visible when she breathed in. "What are you? Some child, angst ridden teen--" Enigmatic, stubborn, hard-headed, stupid woman.

If she doesn't jerk away he runs his palm flat over her ribs, quick and accessing like a man examining livestock, but his face drawn in anger, in concern. "What the hell, Jethro?" It wasn't as if she had been some curvy wonder when they were together, but neither had she looked like this. She had been healthy, bright and happy, and it wounded him in a way he would not admit to think he may have caused this downward spiral. "You aren't taking care of yourself," He accuses, "You never took care of yourself." And for some reason this angers him more than all the rest, the tattoo, her frigid behavior, reverted into a woman he barely knew. "C'mon, I don't care if you do slit my throat in my sleep, you're coming back with me." He bent down to pick up her robes, press them against her chest absentmindedly, careless of her own reaction.

"Get dressed."

She could kill him after he got her back to normal.

[Jethro]

It's a tense moment for her as she waits, back turned towards him and vulnerable. A sharp intake of breath at his touch, visibly stiffening at the unwelcome feeling. She maps the pattern that his fingers trace, rougher in texture than her own skin, something that she sorely remembers too well. And for those few seconds there is a lingering feeling of sorrow that claws at her chest-- one of the quieter voices in her head swimming among the much louder chorus of anger and regret, bitterness and roaring nostalgia that rattles her bones. In the unsettling moments that Liam spends analyzing her tattoo, Jethro's eyes stare somewhere far away, detached and seemingly unconcerned. But the silence is deafening.

Broken only by Liam's voice, "Why would you...to ink yourself with misery, forever," She answers him slow and smooth, voice low. "'Forever' has little meaning." She had never minded the tattoo, never wanted it gone, and every time her eyes registered its presence she had not only a reminder but a warning-- a painted portrait of her past, present, future and fate. "Forever" is a word that has become lost to her.

For the split second between his fingertips on her skin and his hand on her shoulder, she battles with the opposing desires to kick the wall down but also to push him away, to leave and never come back. The ache is still lingering when he forces her to spin around, grey eyes shielded and betraying nothing but a flash of irritation-- but that left almost as soon as it appeared, replaced again with a cold and uncaring glare.

"What are you? Some child, angst ridden teen--"

She's about to snap at him, wants to grab him by the throat in one swift motion and peg him against a tree with the threat of slicing one particularly important vein-- but is stopped only by his palm moving across her rib cage, making her flinch again at the unwanted contact.

"What the hell, Jethro?"

She recognizes his expression as angry, as concerned and worried as he may have been years ago when she was ill. Jethro had never been one to starve herself, had never been one to deny herself of the basic human necessities required to live and to thrive-- but the more recent decades had taken with it her appetite, and her frequent connections with her animal half rarely gave the human part of her any mercy. Several things combined had left her lighter than maybe she should have been.

"You aren't taking care of yourself, you never took care of yourself."

"That's quite the accusation." She muses, the corners of her lips twitching in what might have been a smile on a better day. "I'm fine." She says it in a tone that suggests she would rather get off of the subject than face whatever issues that Liam was seeing in her.

"C'mon, I don't care if you do slit my throat in my sleep, you're coming back with me."

She doesn't say anything, doesn't move when Liam picks up her clothes and presses them back against her, tells her to get dressed. She slips back into them barely any time later, looking at him with a stubborn expression, arms folded, body language rigid in place. "Give me one good reason that I should go." It seems that Liam has forgotten that he can't hold her down anywhere-- that she has the very epitome of freedom at her fingertips and utilizes it very frequently-- and she makes that fact well apparent in her tone of voice.

But behind the masked tone and the hard eyes she considers it. She had come here with the thought of somehow, some way reconnecting with him even if it was on the most minuscule level. And as angry and frustrated as he is now, she's being given an opportunity that she's been wanting for over three decades.

[Liam]

"'Forever' has little meaning."

"So you think," Although only twenty years or so separate them Liam has always seen her as younger, not that she was any less experienced than him. If anything she had seen more horror in her lifetime than he had, great fire and felt the cruelty of people, the abuse they could afflict on someone so defenseless as a child firsthand.

"That's quite the accusation." "I'm fine."

He laughed, a merry ringing sound, but his green eyes are narrowed, bitterness heavy on his tongue. "Don't feed lies to the master, love." The endearment is unnecessary, perhaps needlessly cruel. "And it isn't an accusation, it's a fact." He had nearly forgotten this side of the eagle woman, how she would come home some nights, so tired that she would sleep in the bathtub in her underwear, gashes torn into her skin from a territorial fight with another raptor, or just plain exhausted from days spent in her other form, angry at him. Liam had scooped her up more than once and tucked her back into bed, learning that it was easier to clean out her wounds while she was still sleeping rather than argue with her and be fed the exact same excuses of 'I'm fine'.

"Give me one good reason that I should go."

It was probably immature to tell her "Because I said so.", but the thought crosses his mind. She crosses her arms like a petulant child, eyes still cold and grey like storm clouds, but there is no hint that they'll ever pass. Liam doesn't look away as she dresses, back rigid and tense, making the best use of the four inches he has over her. He considers forcing her to, but acknowledges that forcing Jethro to do anything is a foolish and dangerous endeavor if there ever was one.

Instead the musician gives in with a heavy sigh, shoulders dropping and he raises a hand to scrub at his face, the headache he swears he can feel forming at his temples. "Once burned, twice shy?" He steps back, gives her the space that they both need to think semi-clearly. "Please, Jethro, because I'm asking you."

Manners, please and thank you's, the basic things--and something that Jethro can determine the truth of for herself: "Because I missed you."