He was ashamed. Without even knowing it, he was letting his pack down by not being there. He should have been there, after all... not DaVinci. Maybe the subleader couldn't be trusted, going along with her little plan not to tell him, not to let him be included in the matters of his own pack. Maybe he couldn't trust her either, if she was choosing to keep secrets from him. Maybe...
No. That was where he had began; the brute was not falling back into the hole he'd so unhappily dwelt in for so long. Geneva was different. In the silence that spanned between them, he began to realize: he wasn't ashamed of being a bad leader. He wasn't upset with DaVinci for leaving him in the dark. He wasn't angry with the unsafe borders he managed for his pack, nor was he angry at himself for being the one in charge and not finding the means to check in on her. No... he was ashamed because he hadn't checked in on her. He was ashamed that he hadn't been the one to protect her. He was ashamed to be the one they had to keep secrets from.
How far had he fallen that he'd become so predictable? How far had he fallen that they knew he would only have been a pain if he'd just known?
Jefferson gritted his teeth and cringed, eye lowering to stare at his pained, terrible reflection in the sudsy, ripping water at his feet. Ugly. Somewhere within was something suddenly seething, so horribly disgusted with himself that he could hardly bear it; the cyclops turned away from her, shaking his head slowly. He began to limp away, following the edge of the coast and splashing the bitter, salty water into the air with every tripped second step, his tail limp and running along the crest of the water as he moved. "Just go," he grunted from the depths of his throat. What she'd said wasn't helping. She wasn't helping anymore. If he could just get out of her sight, he would fall in the ocean's open arms without another argument in his mind.