Welcome to Gaia! ::

She was surprised a moment, then laughed, despite everything. "You make him sound like a masochist. You might be right, though. He's a lot harder on himself than he is on other people. You probably just misconstrued- I doubt he's upset with you."

She took a deep breath, then scooted off the edge of the bed to kneel next to Reuben. The mutt rolled over and whined, thumping his tail up against her leg. She was surprised the name didn't incite the same sort of panic that it had for so many months, or that veiled sense of anger and unfinished business. Maybe it was for the sense of time, or maybe it was just one of the many things she'd buried.

"I'm surprised I didn't notice. Our duplexes aren't... too far apart." She peered up through some spines that had fallen into her eyes. "You've heard of Jamal before. He was the one who attacked me in the woods. Well... not that time. The one before, that I'd told you about. The reason I was carrying the little knife around with me." She huffed a dry laugh, then went back to scratching the dog. "I wonder where that damn thing ever went." She'd not seen it since that morning of the Joliette attack when she had tucked it into her pocket as usual.

"...I think he's got more control about him, anyway. ...I saw him a while back- on the beach, there was a truth or dare party. He seemed lucid enough. Didn't talk to me at all. Guess I don't blame him." The dog wriggled happily beneath her gently scratching claws. "And it's okay," she said, referring to his having misplaced the memory of Jamal's attack, "I'm not really sure I told you, anyway." She smiled- a strange thing, and not wholly meant. "It was a looong time ago. You go through something, you move on." She looked up at him, her eyes sympathetic but brutally honest. "It gets less painful." She balked a moment, realizing that she had inadvertently linked what had been two very asimilar incidences. She didn't want Lucas to be offended, and think that she likened her attack to his loss of an eye- but regardless, she still meant what she said. Perhaps she wasn't thinking of the attack, anyway. The vision of a young girl, forever young, now- sitting on the end of a dock, waiting for her sister to return, buoyed up in her mind. Time did go on... and it did get less painful. Or maybe, a different kind of pain. One that had been boxed away- labeled, stored, and compartmentalized.

"...I really don't know. Either way, I just don't know. But for your sake..." she was close enough, kneeling there on the floor next to the bed, to give his leg a sympathetic brush, "I hope we're more alike than you think."

"I think you're just fine company. And I'm in a perfectly decent mood," she said, in what she hoped was an assuaging tone.

"So..." she said, trying to massage some life out of the silence. "Is there anything that you would like to do? A walk... a movie... we could try to teach the mutts some tricks." She smiled, a thing that said as much as her words 'I'm not going away'.

"Come forth into the realm of men, my brothers. ...It's a quote," she explained, "Well... actually, I don't know if something can be a quote if you paraphrase it. Then it's a... mangle. Long story short... you choose. Anything you want to do, sir." She laughed. "Well, within reason."

"Okay, one more question. Promise." She tapped the back of one hand's clawed fingernails against the other, making a swift, absent tack tack tack noise. "Are you putting up with this for my sake- and what you really want is to be left alone? Because I don't want to force you into anything you're not ready for- but I also don't want you to stay in here forever." It was soft and honest, and even a little rude... all together.