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Linarite... Audrey, waking had been news that filled Zink with both joy and trepidation. He was so relieved to hear that she had woken that he had actually sat down in the middle of the park without even finding a bench.
But the joy was tempered by trepidation because he must tell her what he had done to Castor. Her feelings on the matter were... tumultuous.
He'd done his best for her, he'd tried so hard...and yet he wasn't sure which would anger her more.

The fact he didn't believe he could do it again, or the fact he had done it at all. His own auctions haunted his dreams, the -smell- of it, the red of it, the invasive MESS of it had turned him off everything from red koolaid to hamburgers for 2 weeks. He'd at least ventured into well done meat but the act of walking by the meat counter still made him shudder, made him want to scrub the deeds off his skin no matter how vital Castor's death would be to the negaverse.

He brought her a small token, and a few scraps of his notes on what had happened, he assumed someone would have told her, but she deserved to know all the same. Tanzinite and Lina were, if nothing else quite close, and they had both worked with Wolfram...

He knocked on the door frame, so quiet that he might have been a lieutenant again. "Permission to enter 'captain'." he said with just an edge of hopeful tease, just like old times... right?

"The Rumors I have been spreading about your untimely demise had =better= stay just that..." He said flashing her a nervous smile. He fished into his pockets meaning to offer up to her the small peace token he had brought to her, something to soften the blow of the fact he had tried to carry through on his promise to hurt... or kill Castor if the b*****d had hurt her, which he didn't think she knew yet or she'd already be mad.

The glitter of the sun off the ring made him pause, one hand still questing into the pilled pocket of his over shirt as it sunk in that that was no colored stone found in the more casual jewelry stores, nor was it on the 'date' finger as so many Hillworth jocks liked to slide their oversized football rings onto.

"....That... That's new!" He said not sure what else to say. Congratulations? He should say that, it was polite it was formal, but did he feel it? Did it matter what he felt? Ridiculous to think that strange twinge in his chest could be anything, he wasn't 'into' girls after all, but the word still felt dry in his mouth and his smile was almost numb. "Congratulations! Are... you planning on that soon?" He asked tentatively.

"I've... been trying to do a lot of research on the Bridge, not the least of which being who attacked you."

There was something in the way he said it, there was more there than he was saying, she knew him well enough and long enough that that was almost assuredly transparent, the way he cast his eyes around the room rather than meeting her gaze meant he was filled with trepidation for reasons unknown.

A tense silence... "I told him...directly that you were dead." He said, but there was still more to it, the weight of the words said as much. Sometimes he was so good at closing down, but to her... he almost felt he couldn't lie.
"I thought he was the one who did this to you... after what he said when I spoke to him... when I told you he was lying...even to himself."

There, the small justifications that so many of them lived on, survived on. Zac's own morality was fractured on it's own, so it was barely a reach for him to make these small excuses... except to her. Even as he said it his heart thudded in his chest.

He reached into his pocket and placed the small owl beside her, a tiny blue thing of ceramic or plaster, it was hard to say. How ironic that it was supposed to grant calm and peace of mind when he was here facing telling her he'd hurt someone she loved. Even being engaged to a civilian she cared about so much... he doubted that hurting Castor as he had was forgivable.

She was the closest... the best thing he had for a family, he nothing could change that...even if she had died she would have lived on in his thoughts, an influence and an inspiration despite her 'reputation' with the queen. She meant more to him than he could argue should have been reasonable.

"General..." He said quietly almost apologetic. "General... I got promoted right... right after you were hurt. In Elision no less..." he glanced at her trying to muster in him the feeling that they were now 'on par'... but if nothing else she had... what, she had 'Seniority' on him.

"I sent him a message..." It was where he wanted to leave it but he couldn't. His eyes seemed to drain of emotion, of anything. Even at his most serious and thoughtful they had never gone so far...not with her.

His face was blank as a wiped slate when he continued.

"I took a starseed from one of the whores in the Red light District... told her abusive Pimp to give him a message when he got there." He paused his mouth dry but he at least managed to look her in the eyes when he spoke. This was honesty, brutal and real but honest even if there was some small part of him that had died behind those eyes.

"I set a trap for him... I said I'd hurt him if he hurt you...." a flicker there in his eyes that died again like a brief candle, snuffed out in some internal tempest.
"I met him in the poor housing that they were constructing... sometimes they leave their equipment, they don't turn off the electricity." His eyes flicked away for a moment, darkening and disturbed as though haunted, not just by fear of her reactions but by his own memories.

"I caught him by surprise... I wasn't thinking... everyone was telling me I thought too much anyhow, that I needed to be able to do that kind of thing." He glanced back at her, washed out eyes meeting the own rich brown of hers before he continued. "I didn't kill him... I just hurt him, I hurt him a lot... they had a nail gun. I used... I told him you were Dead...and I used... I used the Promotion I had just received...not a few hours before to just... " He faltered.

"I did what I said I would do if he ever hurt you..." He said the words falling between the chasm that seemed to have split between them with every word he spoke. As he stopped the life seemed to re-emerge in his eyes, hope... need... something that he wouldn't even have words for had he been able to see that naked vulnerability that emerged there, the look that said beyond others that he had crossed a line he could never take back...but could never cross again.

The slap staggered him, turning him and making him stagger to clutch at the back of a chair eyes watering and face burning with the deep pain and needled sting that spread over his face, a handsome handprint forming where she had struck him.
Betrayal then shock flickered through his eyes chased hotly by confusion like a hound on the hunt.
"I...I didn't... I wasn't..." He said fumbling for words around the shock at her reaction. He expected her to be angry that he had hurt CASTOR... not to be so furious that he himself might have been hurt.

"I... I had to try..." He fumbled to explain the sheer insanity of his actions, he had surprise on his side, he had emotional warfare that had hit Castor with most probably, far greater force than any physical damage he could have done on his own.

"Please don't... please sit down..." His voice grew tight with worry and he reached a fearful hand towards her, afraid she would both slap it away and that his own touch might cause her more pain. "I'll call a nurse... a doctor... I'm sorry... I'm sorry!" He said rushed before he realized he'd left a question un answered.

"He... He said he didn't know who hurt you... I haven't found anyone else that seemed likely, if they are out their they have been laying low...and then..." he faltered, he couldn't tell her what had happened to the other's not like this.

She'd stood just to strike him in her anger, what would she do if she knew that the other's had been abducted... She'd die... he'd loose her to information that he could withhold and that would never do.

"I've been looking...everywhere... I have people searching for anyone who's attacks could do that kind of damage, they have orders to run, teleport...anything to get the information back to us safely in order to neutralize that threat to us." He said trying to turn the shake in his voice into something professional even as he tried to keep from reaching to the hot sting that pervaded his cheek.

"Glass..." he repeated as though the word itself were sharp enough to cut the word from his mouth. "Cut hands... lacerated most likely, they don't normally have useful gloves, holding that would be dangerous." He let his mind run before he stopped to consider that he was laying potentially dangerous information in front of her.

He cleared his throat and looked away for a moment and back.

"If it makes you feel better... but it might disappoint, I don't think I could do that again. I don't... I'm never going to be as good at fighting as you or the other's... and... honestly I think that was worse than collecting star seeds."

The flush crept across his face because he'd never admitted he hated collecting star seeds either, his reasons would probably make her laugh to boot.

He wanted to tell her that one day he would find out who hurt her, that he'd make sure to send a well equipped -team- to deal with them but he didn't want her to feel useless.

"You defiantly need out of here... I need to meet your fiancee and make sure he's worthy of you." He tried to make sure there was a tease in his voice, but... there was also worry. Would this new civilian promise be good for her...or bad.

"You'll have to forgive me that with you in HERE, I'm a little leery to show you where..." He admitted. "Though I may have considered other places to put it, somehow it just seemed... inhuman even for them. I think I'll have to leave that for Tanz and um...'Arm'." He said flushing quietly.

"...Funny... I did my hospital time before I joined... I guess that's pretty ironic." He shook his head and added. "Don't remember how I got there though...Do remember being in a s**t ton of trouble for hospital bills." He gave her a watery smile.

"Information, what I do best." He gave her a small smile and shook his head in awe at the memory of the enormous house, and arched both eyebrows at the mention of 'black pearl' replicas for the pool. "Um...big Jack Sparrow fan?" He hazarded. "Or is she more into uh...Davie Jones." It was a tease, honestly more people probably crushed on "Will Turner" than the be-tentacled Captain of the deep.

"... god..." He said after a moment. "I should get a Job too, I mean, besides..." He waved his hand ambiguously meaning their loyalty to the Dark Kingdom. "Something... I can't keep making myself go to the house forever to watch my Mothers continuous attempts to destroy her Kidney's... and at least then I could have visitors who didn't have to pretend to be my girlfriend...harder now with that...rather large rock?" He teased slightly but he glanced away with just a hint of pink in his cheeks.