What was he doing? He was a monster. The scars that long-dead creatures had left him as parting gifts littered his body from head to toe, some gashes deeper than others, but every scar led to an empty memory. The beast that might have been considered frightening, having seen a thousand battles and traveled through hell and back, couldn't remember a second of the journey. For many, every scar bore was another memory, another prize of a difficult battle. For Jefferson, his scars were nothing more than warning signs to ward off the fainthearted. They were a defense mechanism, keeping acquaintances and strangers alike at arm's length; Jefferson never knew if or when he could snap back to the insanity that was Maluki. The sins he bore on his skin he could not even remember. Those who left them died in vain as a result. Those scars were not trophies, they were physical embodiments of a cyclops's guilt. His scars were reminders that it wasn't safe to get too close to a killer who couldn't even remember his victims.
She'd known that all along. Somehow, Geneva had willingly squeezed through, drawn by a force he himself had never detected nor foreseen. He'd tried to defend his walls, but he'd eventually given up on her and let her through. When had that been? It seemed like it had been so long since he'd made a real effort to keep her out of his head; Jefferson had made the occasional denial and argument against her, but she knew the machinations of his mind in and out. She swerved her way around his excuses and growls in a matter of seconds and he had simply given up, considering the gray-furred woman to be some sort of enigma. She was some sort of puzzle he wasn't able to figure out, the first of many faces he could not predict. She was some sort of unexplainable entity that clouded his thoughts every chance she had.
And she did. Even then, as the touch on his face gently moved to brush through his hair, he could hardly think straight. There was no why or how, there was only the second at hand: her movements, her words, her eyes. Distantly he could feel her claim his hands, unafraid of the countless scars and torn skin that adorned his bad arm and hand. She leaned in close to him; his tattered ears flicked back at her words, pulling the one-eyed idiot back to reality and out of the cloud of emotions that had risen. His mind pulled in several directions at once all of a sudden, yearning to demand answers out of her while wanting to grow angry or frustrated or rush off to be alone. Instead, his feet didn't budge. His shoulders relaxed, tension drifting away. Despite all the torrential cries and desperation to be alone, despite all the walls he'd built and the world he'd made for himself, something felt... right. Jefferson had never known a time where anything felt "right" in his life. Hushing the remaining questions was a strange, unexplainable force that simply made everything feel "right"... and somehow, he believed it to be she.
His hands captured, the great cyclops that towered over her simply leaned his head on hers. His eye gazed off, blindly watching the fireflies dance their evening ballad. "I don't think I need to," he mumbled. For once, there was no need to go by what his head told him. For once, he followed his instincts, and his instincts spoke of olive green eyes. "...So this is the peace you found." He didn't wonder how she found it in him... but he wondered why he hadn't found it in her sooner.