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geneva; raven beacon!
The ocean was no panacea.
There was no elixir for his thoughts. It was like a disease had overcome him, like the world had suddenly crashed down again just as it had with Iskata's sudden and untimely death he'd never even said goodbye to. Kids. He had kids. No amount of walking, whether three- or two-legged, could put his mind at peace. There was no paternal pride, no eagerness to see his children grow and strive and live like a normal parent would have. How many times had he told himself that he could have never been a father because he simply had never known how?
His own son had tried to attack him. Had the other two joined in, the one-eyed monster wasn't sure he could have fended them all off; he could have died. Jefferson was still wary of the concept of children, still trying to disbelieve that they were even his own flesh and blood--but it was no use. The fury that glowed in their eyes were recognizable; they were spawns of his sin, sin he could not even remember. Sins he had never fathomed himself to commit. It was true: he'd gone mad. Somewhere along the line, he'd gone mad... it was why he couldn't remember. It was why faces were a blur. It was why he couldn't sleep at night since the realization was forced into his head.
But the three of them... they were his. Apparently, he'd killed their mother, along with countless other blurred faces in his mind. The cyclops had a vague recollection of the woman they'd described; it wasn't long after he'd woken up to sanity. He'd adopted the name Jefferson a short time before, having no memory of who he was or what he'd done... and he'd just been wandering, trying to remember, trying to ease himself out of the fog and mist that rendered him incapable of remembering a thing. She'd seen him and attacked him first. Right? ...The fight itself had been performed in a blind rage. He remembered her face, and he remembered it dead. He remembered leaving. That was all.
The ocean's rippling waves and sharp, blustery breeze soothed nothing. He sat three-legged in the sand, listless green eye a thousand miles away. The temptation within the cruel sea called to him, but the cyclops did not yet move. Just a rock against the wind: solid and silent, waiting for nothing at all. There was nothing left worth waiting for. His crimes were his own, the doubts he'd always wondered suddenly a reality. He was a criminal... a monster. The sea was calling. He stood, eye thinning from the twisting pain within his chest, and limped a few feet into the water. Cold, bitter... and tempting.
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The Locum had taken to searching the inner-territories of the pack land, exposing their mysteries bit by bit. She committed them to memory, tracing her steps and counting silently in her head. It was the best way for her to memorize the way. Being without a sense of scent, she had to utilize the other resources available. She had trained her mind to record memories in vivid technicolor, noticing minute details and thinking them significant. She paced slowly, absorbing every bit of knowledge, every image available to her wide lime green eyes. The cold of winter had eased entirely, and the wolfess was grateful for that. It robbed her of an excuse to hide away indoors.
She felt the heaviness of salt upon her face as she paced in her lupus form across semi-familiar terrain. Geneva found herself instantly pulled toward the feeling of moisture in the air. She had only discovered the coast a short time ago, within her first few weeks of joining Crimson Dreams. She had come a long way since then, both in life experience and in experiences of the heart. She held certain memories close to her as other faded into the background, but only for a moment until her attention returned to the here and now.
She found the seaside to be an alien world of unchartered change. The sea could thrash, crash against the sand and completely change the layout of the beach at a moment's notice. Normally, Geneva wasn't drawn to change, to chaos. She couldn't make sense of it, find rational reason within chaotic patterns. Still, there was something about the unplanned tumult of the waves, the serenity in their momentary stillness that drew her in instead of repulsing her.
Before long, her uneven footsteps lead her to the sight of a three-legged male that stopped her short. Jefferson had lingered in her mind in shadows for weeks as she had steered her path clear of his. She had been sure to give the Patriarch a wide berth after she had been attacked and beaten at the borders, for some reason ashamed to face him. She felt the ghost of shame bubbling in her throat, but swallowed it down resolutely as she took a moment to really look at the Patriarch. Although he was moving closer to the water, there was a stillness about him that was unnatural, a quiet quality to his solitude that hinted at something more, something dark.
She swallowed sense of shame, forgetting the insecurity brought by the pale bundle of scar tissue that marked her left shoulder and side. For now, that wasn't important. Something wasn't quite right with Jefferson, something had changed. Or perhaps she was reading him wrong all over again. It wouldn't be the first time. "Going for a swim?" she said lightly as she moved to stand close beside him, cold water pooling around her front paws as she waded into the ocean.
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What was silence on the outside contrasted the chaos within; he argued with himself to no end, tempted by the water's grasp to end it all. He was tired, weary: a loner who had somehow become a leader in a place he'd never wanted in the first place. Jefferson had warmed up to Phoenix Valley, being that succeeding Iskata and gaining the drive to run the pack well in her stead made his land and underlings his pride and joy... instead of the children he was supposed to have, perhaps. He could have ended it all right there and then, succumb to the cold ocean waves and numb the torture at last, but... he didn't. They still needed him--DaVinci couldn't lead a pack by himself. Addison couldn't afford to lose another guardian.
And on top of it all, he had three kids who were already minus one parent. Smooth move, Maluki.
The sounds in his head screamed and groaned, muting the sounds of crying seagulls and the rushing waves. The grief in his head was suddenly silenced, a familiar voice suddenly cutting through like a knife through butter. He suddenly became aware of the world again, the feel of the sand between his toes and the bitter, stinging chill of the sea on his bad foreleg. He should have known that she would have found him... she always did when he didn't need finding. As she came to stand beside him, the cyclops turned to simply look at her: his muscles, his expression, his being seemed to sag and wither, and within his single green eye was such a lonely, terrified presence that he could have been mistaken for someone else. He was afraid, troubled; he didn't know what to do next.
His gaze slowly turned again, desolately overlooking the sea. In the sky, the thick overcast of clouds rumbled ominously, threatening their presence. "I could," was the answer of a broken, shallow voice.
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He seemed to return to earth, if only for a moment. There was a flash of something that lurked behind his single electric eye. Something was there within the bright green depths, waiting to consume this man. Or whatever he had left of him. She sensed that he was fighting something. Or perhaps he wasn't fighting anything at all. She wondered what he would be trying to make his mind up about, and her eyes swept out over the ocean again.
She sensed the dark, molten core of pain in him. But was it all-consuming? What could take him, empty him so completely? Something had utterly devastated him, hard ravaged the heart he held entombed within his chest. What could have shaken him? She found his gaze and held it, taken aback by the sadness in his face. She had seen sides of him she hadn't expected, but that one single look of misery was so defenseless, yet guarded at the same time she had no idea what to make of it.
Jefferson was a closed individual. With him, she always had to try to read between the lines, find hidden chinks in his armor to get through to his inner self. She felt as sharp pang as she recalled the brightness in his face the last time she had seen him, baiting her to read all those weeks ago at the ranch. She thought he had been closed off then, but how wrong she'd been. Here, he had presented her with yet another conundrum.
She wanted to offer her comfort, but she felt that he wouldn't accept it. She felt if she were to offer the slightest iota of warmth that he would turn away from her completely, if he hadn't already. And so she had to forge a way to him on neutral, rocky ground. She waded into the shallow water in front of him, curling her body so that she stood still a bit to the side, but now they were face-to-face with about a foot between them. "Why don't we talk instead?" It was a gentle demand, an offering, perhaps even maybe a plea. Her tone held bits of everything. She didn't want to force him, but she refused to leave him this way. This time, no matter what face he showed her, Geneva wouldn't run.
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Strange, how there were no hellos or goodbyes between them anymore. Geneva seemed to appear in his life at such convenient and inconvenient times that it had stopped occurring to him; her arrivals and departures all seemed to flow together, and the fact that he was always wondering how she might react to the things he did made it so it seemed she never left him at all. He realized then that it had been weeks since they'd seen each other... but with all that had been going on in his life, he'd been too busy to even notice. She stepped in front of him and looked him in the eye--at first, he looked away, but his gaze shot back immediately thereafter.
She was... covered in scars.
"Wh..." He started, expression rapidly shifting to sheer, almost wordless admonishment at the change. His mouth hung agape for a few seconds before he caught himself, voice suddenly springing back to a level a bit more reminiscent of his normal self. "What happened to you?! You're covered in..." Scars. Just like himself, though she was nowhere near as gruesome and ugly as he. His green eye, wide and freaked, searching her for answers. Why hadn't she come to him for help? Why hadn't she told him what had happened--especially if it was with another member of his pack? Was it because he was... unapproachable? The cyclops's green eye thinned painfully as he shook his head: "Why didn't you..." ...tell me? Somehow, he couldn't finish his sentences. He was shocked, shaken--out of the mist he'd been in, somehow, that he wasn't about to look back on just yet. He didn't want to talk about it. That was enough. It didn't occur to him that he was acting strangely, that he was showing concern. It didn't occur to him that she'd pick up on it and accuse him of being soft. When had she gotten so hurt?
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Geneva stood still, conscious of the water pooling at her feet as she felt Jefferson's eye really look at her for the first time. It was the moment she had been avoiding for weeks, but there was no turning back now. She was equally stunned by how quickly his demeanor changed. He had gone from one thousand miles away to critical in only a second, the sorrow washing off his features to be replaced with shock. She idly noted that she had never seen this expression on his face before - she had surprised him, certainly, but abject shock was something completely different. And underneath it all, genuine concern lingered in his tone, which perhaps shocked her as much as her scars had shocked him. She didn't know if it was a break through, if she had penetrated the wall he kept erected so tightly around himself. But why would he worried about her? There had been danger at the borders of his lands, but the concern hinted at something deeper. She didn't want to think about it, didn't have time as the Patriarch stumbled through his sentences. Before she knew it, she was fumbling with her own words, trying to explain. "It was.." she swallowed. "A few weeks ago, there was a wolf at the borders. He seemed strange, not quite right in the head, you know?" She didn't stop to see if he would answer her question. "We had an altercation there. I was lucky that DaVinci got there when he did." She was quiet for a moment, the meaning of her own words hitting her like a rogue train again. She still hated to acknowledge her own mortality, hated to realize how insignificant and fragile her life was. It no longer scared her, but left her with a burning sense of shame. "Don't be angry with DaVinci," she said quickly, her eyes jumping to meet his own eye. "I asked him not to tell you. The shame of it..." She just shook her head.
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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.
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Geneva waited for an explosion. Anger was usually the ideal outlet, a quick, swift surge of dark red and exploding violet. She had seen Jefferson angry before, had seen him explode like fireworks when she had surprised him. And she had a feeling that she might have pushed him over the edge. She expected him to raise his voice, or perhaps lower it - to glower, to berate her. Instead, he did just the opposite. She stood frozen once again, watching helplessly as he shut down all over again, casting his eyes to the water below. Before she even knew it, he had turned and was walking away from her. She watched him uneven gate, locked in stillness and shock as he retreated without a word. She heard him mumble a scant two syllables, carried on the salt tinged wind as he made his way across the beach. Geneva blinked, once, twice, before she shook her head. Her brows furrowed, her ears flicking back against her head as a buzzing filled her mind. She was surprised as she felt anger assault her senses in a dizzying wave. It brought her up short for a moment, even as the warm energy coursed through her body. She was frustrated that his first defense or reaction, or whatever, was to run away. Frustrated that she couldn't divine what lay at the core of his sorrow. She charged down the coast after him, splashing water up around her sides as she went. She came to a halt in front of him, an obstacle in his path. She corralled him in with her body, lime green eyes alight as she looked at him. "I'm sorry if I hurt you," she said, surprised by the edge in her voice. Her eyes widened for a moment, surprised by her own tone, but she shook her head again and looked intensely into his green eye. "You're not going anywhere until you talk to me."
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She got in his way, and yet he was not surprised. As much as he hoped for things to go his way when she was around, they never did. Jefferson had erupted into shouts and swears in an attempt to drive her off his land once before, and it hadn't worked. He'd tried to send her away a second time, and it didn't work (instead, she ended up becoming a member). He'd been cold, harsh, bitter to her all along and yet somehow it wasn't working on her, even though it did with everyone else. He couldn't be Jefferson with Geneva. He had to be Maluki--he had to be who he really was... and he hated it.
He froze in his steps when she leapt out in front of him, voice rising to levels she had thrown at him only a few times before. Her green eyes reached at him, suddenly more daring and striking as they ever had been, and for a moment Jefferson didn't have the slightest clue what to respond to her. He stared, his typical gruffness absent but instead replaced by a stolid, melancholy stare that simply gazed at her and demanded nothing else. "Why should I talk to you now," the hybrid said quietly, "when you kept your own secrets before?" He was not angry, no. Just... mellow.
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The gray wolfess frowned at the Patriarch as she considered his words. She cast her lime green eyes down to the frothy water, pondering his words and her distorted reflection. His argument was valid, there was no way she could refute it. She sighed and looked back up at him, some of the wind taken out of her sails. Geneva wasn't good at maintaining her anger, though some of that fire still smoldered inside of her. "You're right," she said in frustration, looking at Jefferson helplessly. But the fact that he was right wouldn't be the key to his speedy getaway. Geneva wouldn't stand down. She supposed if he just pushed past her and continued on as a final resort, she could always go after him. He couldn't outrun her if she really tried. She smiled tightly, "But the fact that you're right won't make me go." He seemed to have mellowed and she sighed, shaking her head slightly and moving now so she stood in front of him instead of boxing him in. Communicating with him was nearly impossible - it seemed easy and strained at the same time. She had trouble wrapping her head around it. She had mellowed to. He had the ability to set her at ease, but set her mind spinning in a million different directions all at once. "I'll tell you what - I'll answer your questions if you'll answer mine."
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At his words, the energy that Geneva had so quickly built up was just as hastily dispelled; the girl sank a little, defenseless against stray wit and logic, but the stand she made was the same. As long as Jefferson was wallowing in his misery, she wasn't about to let him get away with it. No, Geneva would keep boxing him in time and time again until he opened his mouth and released it all, released everything within he just wanted to keep to himself. He wasn't ready to tell the world he was a parent or that he was a criminal. Jefferson wasn't ready for his pack to know they were being led by a rapist who could potentially have spawned dozens of fatherless beings like the three that had stood on his doorstep, and yet be the same brute who knew not one of them. He wasn't ready for Geneva to find out the truth as suddenly and unwillingly as he had--and question his morals and necessities to the earth in the same fashion as he. He didn't want to scare her off anymore. The cyclops just wanted to be left alone.
But she wasn't going to back off, and that much was final. He'd tried it before and not once had he succeeded. The deal she gave him was simple: answer my questions and I'll answer yours, but he had no questions for her. Jefferson knew he hadn't been told the truth about her fight because they feared he would overreact and go off on a rampage like always, and granted, he might have. She'd smiled at him, but he'd only lowered his gaze to scowl at the water. Her voice had blossomed into something cheery, warm--while his was still clamped within, gruff and broken. He had no questions for her, but he knew what questions she had for him. He knew... so he didn't let her ask.
"I... have..." the Patriarch mumbled slowly, as if admitting the words more to himself than to she. "...Kids. I... have kids." The one-eyed idiot shook his head slowly and finally heaved the great breath that had been locked within, as if the words themselves had opened a gate somewhere. "I'm not supposed to be a parent," he continued, eye staring into the pained gaze his reflection mirrored. "How they were conceived, I..." He shook his head. He couldn't go that far... no, he couldn't tell her. Instead, a long pause spanned between them, as his jaw was parted and frozen in time, trying to find the words to express what the thousands of thoughts in his head were saying. The ocean's waves filled their silence, and the groan of the clouds above replied to the sea.
"Geneva, they were..." He spoke so slowly, trailing off and picking up again when he could find the words. He shook his head again, as if in disbelief, and yet he smiled--just slightly--and almost laughed. "...They were beautiful. They were young and strong, all three of them. And yet... they're mine. They grew up ...beautiful, even with such an ugly..." ...father. Silence.
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Geneva listened, shocked into silence as Jefferson continued speaking. He seemed hesitant at first, the words half-hearted as they fell from his lips. But soon the story, and his sorrow, began to take form in Geneva's mind. She tried to derive their meaning, to decipher the sadness in his halting sentences. The story unfolded before her as her lime green eyes sank to stare at his blurry reflection in the water. The reflection of his single green eye wavered as the water rippled and moved around their feet. Salt collected in her lungs, cold air expanding in her chest as she let Jefferson's story enfold her. It seemed as though he could hardly believe what he was saying, or perhaps he didn't want to believe it. But Geneva could feel the truth in his words, could feel the impact of a staggering realization that had with all likelihood turned the Patriarch's world upside down. For a moment, his voice trailed off in the middle of a sentence. Geneva wasn't sure if he was having trouble collecting his thoughts, or if he was hiding something. She turned her head to the side for a moment, regarding his ever-changing reflection, and decided not to pursue that particular thread of questioning. His confession was a huge breakthrough. She felt as though something had broken open inside of him, something that would needed a delicate touch. She had to be careful; she didn't know if he would ever feel safe enough to open up like this again. When he smiled, it was like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. She saw the expression light his face, just for a moment, before his self doubt clouded his features once more. She crept forward, and hesitantly reached out for him. She walked until her feet intercepted the image of his face reflected in the water, causing ripples all around them. She touched her nose to the side of his face briefly, closing her eyes for a moment to press her face against his before she drew back to look into his face. "I don't doubt that your children are beautiful," she said. "You're not ugly, Jefferson." How could he believe that?
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When the words had left his mouth, the smile that had so slowly crept forward had quickly vanished once more, shamed by his thoughts. It did not occur to him that he was actually opening up to her, that he was letting her win the game he'd been so determined to win himself. It didn't occur to him that he was showing his vulnerabilities, that he was mentally lying belly-side up and and defenseless. It didn't occur to him that she would take his words and write about them in that silly little journal of hers, make her witty observations, and plan her next moves to break him apart further. It didn't matter that his walls and defenses were crashing down, even if just for those few moments. As the words left his mouth, nothing went through his mind at all. Nothing but the mixture of emotions, of sadness and pride, tragedy and confusion all spinning endlessly in his head.
His eye remained affixed on his reflection in the water, broken only by the sound of moving water, at which his ears perked when he realized she was in action. Jefferson's single-eyed gaze rose, but as it did, she met him--brushing against him in a way that none had ever even tried, let alone wanted to do. Such contact fired up reflexive, defensive instincts, the very same instincts that killed countless innocents in cold blood before and after he lost his memory and the same instincts that killed Aurelie, the coyote who mothered his shamed children. The cyclops's single eye stared forward in shock and his body froze at the contact... and yet it was warm. Comforting. Geneva moved to meet his flustered, clearly overwhelmed gaze and spoke in the kindest of tones, but Jefferson shook his head. He spoke in a voice lacking walls, a tone that reached back into his youth and could have been Maluki himself speaking: it was void of the gruffness, the darkness that normally inhabited. He sounded... young. Scared, maybe. "N-No," he argued shallowly, lacking anger or anything more than saddened frustration in his voice. "Y-You know who I am. You know how I look and act just as well as everyone else. You can't say I'm not..." ...ugly. Why was it so hard to say?
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It seemed almost as though Jefferson had transformed before her in only a few short moments. She didn't feel as though he had become someone completely different, though. Rather, she felt as though those layers he had wrapped and erected around himself were falling through as shining being sprang forth. She couldn't speak for a moment as he revealed this secret creature to her even further. He presented her with his sorrows, his ill-begotten joy and pride, his vulnerabilities. Geneva hadn't believed that he would ever let her see his true face, yet here he was, in all his imperfect beauty. Her hesitance melted away. She no longer felt as though she was dealing with a skittish animal. She was no longer afraid to drive him away. They had come to a point, finally, where they could be themselves, nothing more and nothing less. Geneva felt as though she could do nothing else, nothing less. These moments of truth, though there may be few so clear between them, were something precious, something not to be taken lightly. There was sadness in the Patriarch's voice, perhaps even fear. But anger, defensiveness was absent from his words. She shook her head and just looked him, wondering why he would persist to believe the worst of himself. "I know who you are," she agreed quietly. And it seemed strange to acknowledge it. But it seemed, that since the moment she had met him, she had been reaching for this hidden part of him all along. "And that is why I could never see you as ugly." She said the last word resolutely, certain that it was the one that Jefferson couldn't make come out.
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Her words had some sort of dizzying effect on him; the world began to spin suddenly as the old, abandoned emotions he'd kept bottled tightly within surfaced and ravaged through his mind. Everything he feared was slowly becoming reality: He was vulnerable and something within was creaking, on the verge of breaking apart altogether and unleashing something more. Jefferson feared the monster within himself more than the monster he typically played for the world on a normal day. The emotions he kept within were raw, unusual, foreign -- he didn't know how to act and it felt as if nothing came naturally, doubled in trouble only by the vulnerability of his shattered mask and facade that left him completely susceptible and bare.
Jefferson couldn't understand her words, couldn't decipher her logic; the beast that analyzed everything and everyone could not figure her out. It was a terrifying thing, like being lost in the thickest of fog and mists without a lantern or guiding way. She didn't know him well enough to disagree -- she didn't know what he had done. He had never told her; she had never asked. Geneva had never questioned the cyclops of his background or why he never mentioned his family... she hardly even knew he was an amnesiac that couldn't sleep at night, haunted by unclear memories of things he'd done but never believed. They'd since become a reality: he was the second side of Maluki that had been tempted away by some sort of unexplainable insanity, not the energetic, loving one that Laruku had explained him to be in his youth. Geneva didn't know the things the second Maluki had done... the things he -- Jefferson -- had done. "I raped her," bit his cold words to the air, spoken darkly and affirmatively. His stance had become rigid, his eye affixed into the distance. Vulnerability aside, he stood as a rock she was supposed to run away from. No, he didn't remember doing it to Aurelie... but that was no excuse for it having been done. His typical scowl was a solid frown with affixed brows; he was the monster he believed himself to be, and Geneva knew nothing. Slowly but surely, the cyclops's green eye turned to stiffly look at her. He said nothing more.
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Time stood still again, moments stretching between them to make the passage of time slow. And a distance was stretching between them, too, as Jefferson's single green eye met Geneva's lime green gaze. She could see already, how he was trying to distance himself, trying to close himself off. She didn't even hear what he had said for a minute. She was so intent and focused on his face that the revelation of his words hit her at the last minute. The play of shadows and light on his face captivated her as the sound reached her ears, and the meaning wrapped around her mind. She let the meaning of those words process. Her mind was a dark tangle, a jumble of confused images. Geneva's experiences with intimacy had been wondrous. She had been safely guided into the secrets of the flesh by someone she had loved, who had loved her dearly. She found it hard to imagine that an experience that could be so beautiful could be twisted into something darker, something shattering. But she knew that it was easy to transform vulnerability, to corrupt it and twist it. She cast her eyes to her reflection as she dwelled on those thoughts. She looked back up at him, noting the rigidity of his stance, the coldness in his tone and gaze. Geneva was all soft - the sound of her voice a whisper, her footsteps small, fluttering paths. But she would try to match the strength of his self-hatred, the core of his darkness, with strength of her own. "And you regret it." She spoke with surety, with complete faith infusing her words. She had seen beneath this cold exterior, and she refused to believe there was all that was left of him. There was a part of him that lived on this regret, the part that was eating him alive. Her words didn't refute his statement. She met his eye, acknowledging that he had committed an atrocity. "I can believe the worse of you...but that won't stop me from believing in the best of you, either."
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Her insistence, her dedication to finding the best in a monstrous beast was not only admirable, but completely irritating all at once. Geneva's words furrowed his brow: Jefferson didn't understand why she was so determined to keep him from being the terrible creature he was. The shame, the shock he'd felt that first time had passed through her eyes when she heard his news, and yet the precocious lime things looked at him in a silent acknowledgment and seemed to forgive him both at once... something he did not want. Forgiveness. Why did he deserve that? The crimes he committed she clearly didn't understand. Geneva kept simply looking past them, hardly looking them in the eye or taking them to mind. He didn't get it, and... that was nearly infuriating.
His tone matched the mindset. The beast flared some, shaking his head and peering at her with a disgruntled scowl and a grim, confused eye. "Why?" Jefferson demanded suddenly, green eye piercing and relentless in its stare. "Why can't you just believe me?" Not believe his words -- but believe who he was, or who it was he thought himself to be. "Why do you have to keep trying? Can't you just acknowledge that you were wrong?" His voice dropped from perplexed to nearly pleading in his confusion and irritation. Jefferson heard the stupidity in his own voice and in the argument he made: she wouldn't back down and he knew it. He sighed audibly and turned, stepping past her once more. He couldn't stop trying to escape, even if he knew it was pointless with that girl. "I raped her! I raped some innocent girl and I can't even remember it to regret it!" He shouted in frustration as he moved away, pacing this way and that as he limped through the water, stopping and turning and stopping again as he tried to sort his thoughts, clearly overwhelmed. "Hell if I know what else I did! If I already stopped believing that I was anything other than a monster, why shouldn't you?!"
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"Because," she said, meeting his flaring gaze coolly. She heard him collecting anger within his tone, felt that energy pouring back into him. But she wouldn't shrink away. She had seen this all before, and she was no longer afraid of this part of him. She stood against him unflinching, secure in her own half-jumbled understanding of this situation. She didn't understand it anymore than he did, but it seemed that the connection between them became clearer upon each meeting. She wasn't willing to give in. He could push against her, and she might bend, but she would not break. "Because, someone has to try until you can. Someone has to believe in you until you quit running away," she said, her soft voice shaking with irritability, with frustration as he continued to try to run away from her. He couldn't scare her away, and she wouldn't give up this pursuit without a concrete reason. She felt as though there was too much at stake, but she had no idea what she was losing. Here she was, using a cutting tone to her superior. Geneva was a fool, but now it was a role that she embraced. She had committed herself to this course of action, and would see it through to the end. She might not be the bravest, nor the wisest, but she was devoted. She took two angry, determined steps in his direction, not certain what she should feel. "You say you can't remember what you did to that girl...but it is as real to you as if it had happened today." She lifted her chin as she looked him straight in the face with intensity in her lime green gaze. She recalled the softening of his features when he spoke of his misbegotten children. She sighed. "You can't help the past, but you have control over your actions now. You can make your future different. Your kids...Find the courage not to run away from them, the same way you run away from yourself."
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It was unusual for Geneva to react hastily, angrily -- and although he had only barely anticipated it, Jefferson was clearly taken aback by the fiery words of the girl of typically cool, calm emotions. Geneva had seen his anger before. She'd seen all sides of him: anger, loss, pain, and even the rarely seen, paternal side he'd only realized recently. She'd seen his defensiveness over Addison and the twinkle of his eye discussing his own children. Geneva did know him inside-out: it still scared him, and yet, her words instilled a feeling of... trust. His tattered ears flicked back as she spoke and he pulled back his head in surprise, retreating a step when she stepped forward two.
Jefferson remained silent throughout her lecturing, ears tilted backward and eye averted away in a stubborn shame. He knew she was right, he just didn't want to admit it. But instead of having to, instead of arguing further, he was quiet when she finished. The Patriarch couldn't admit a thank you or anything similar, couldn't say that he was grateful for her presence and that he'd grown quite fond of her. Instead, after a silence spanned between them, his ears slowly perked and his shallow green eye gently rolled to look at her. "You've never told me about your past, Geneva," he said quietly. For some reason, her name was like taboo: the way it rolled off his tongue was a unique feeling, as if it was something precious. He didn't address many by name often -- typically only DaVinci and Addison -- but doing so assured some sort of level of... seriousness with him that he couldn't explain. His words were hardly a statement; the subtle look in the emerald of his eye plead for something more, something she could finally admit herself. "You already know everything about me," but I know nothing about you.
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Geneva exhaled shakily, the words coming out in a rush of hot air. She felt her heart pounding in her ears at the swift tide of emotion that had led to those words. She swallowed once, watching his face, not certain what to expect. She hated to feel as though she wasn't in control, but strong emotion ripped the reigns from her hands. Her hold on herself was so unsteady when she was around him. It was dizzying, exhilarating, and terrifying all at once. She watched his face, wondering what she might have brought out in him this time. She saw his ears flick back, his gaze leave her face. She recoiled internally, wondering if she had driven him away. She opened her mouth to say that she was sorry, that she didn't mean a word of what she had said. But then he spoke again, and there wasn't any anger in his voice. Her mouth snapped shut and opened again in surprise at his words. It took a second or two to process what he was saying, though he used so few words. And the tone of his voice was different, too. She had expected a million different things, an angry retort, a scowl - but not for him to ask her about herself. It was hard to share about herself, to keep her cards close to her chest and to speak the truth. Her silence was her self defense. She looked at him for a moment, feeling lost herself, floundering. And before she knew it, she was speaking to him, trying to find an answer for the look in his eyes. "I never knew my mother," she said. She didn't know why it was important. "But my father was my world. He more than made up for her absence. It never crossed my mind to miss my mother." She shrugged, struggling to find the words, trying to find a way to describe all the love she had known from her father. "He died, of the same wasting disease that claimed Jordan." She didn't think to elaborate on who Jordan was, but what he meant to her echoed in the way she said his name. She closed her eyes for a moment, swept away on a wave of pain as images of her father and her mate, both hale and strong, the light fading from their eyes, two different shades, and the strength leaving their arms thin as reeds. And she opened her eyes again, speaking with the dark core of her own pain in her throat. She didn't know where to begin, didn't know why she was sharing this. But, with her heart in her eyes, she found herself revealing her greatest vulnerability. "I thought I was to be alone...but I wasn't." She swallowed, lime green gaze seeking her reflection. She watched her face as it wavered in the sea. Her voice was soft, as if she was speaking to herself. "Sometime, anytime, another time, I changed. Became a different person, another person. A totally new being completely unrelated to the person I was before. I became something completely bigger than myself. Something that would begin to define me, absolutely separate from anything, any term I had used in the past. Something that would belong completely to me, yet have absolutely nothing to do with me." She breathed in, her eyes returning to Jefferson. "I became a mother." She exhaled noisily, flicking her ears back in shame. She hadn't talked about this, not really. And all the emotion she had been holding at arms length for almost half a year came rushing back to choke her. She looked away from him, embarrassed, ashamed to reveal this weakness to him. "I came here, trying to find a good place to make a life for us. But I lost them, I failed." She shook her head, clearing her throat to keep the thickness from her voice. "Now I try, every day, not to fail again."
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