entranceway | text; pockets full of stones

[Evelyn can count on one hand the people she's shared these photographs with over the course of her years here, can pick them out by name, recalling the dates and times. Whether he knows it or not Frank is joining privileged and rarefied company. She can tell in the way he idles over returning the locket that there is a personal longing for something similar. Something tangible, to avoid forgetting.

She understands. She built the archives out of this precise sentiment. What did Frank arrive here with? Himself, and his fury?

His own person, and questionable methods for information extraction. She won't begrudge him.]

No, we don't.

[She fastens the piece of jewelry back around her neck for safekeeping, fingers brushing the clasp before they fall back into her lap. Evelyn doesn't dawdle over the emotional wave he must be wading through but neither does she belittle it.]

You deserve better.

[Now, he takes advantage of the flask, when the locket is safe, back around her neck, hidden under her blouse. He'd left behind pictures of his family, let the burn in his house when he left it, not just ending a chapter in his life, but burning the whole damn book.

It hadn't helped. He still had memories, but sometimes, they weren't comforting, sometimes, they seemed to rip into him again, like waking up from a beautiful dream to a brutal reality, over and over again.

A picture would have tied him to that past, maybe grounded him. He doesn't know. All he knows is that he doesn't have one. And the drink won't change that, but it will be a wedge of time and action between that thought and himself. ]

No. I don't. Not anymore.

[He hands the flask back to her, as if surrendering something else that wasn't his.]

[She didn't misspeak - what Evelyn believes he deserves and what Frank believes he deserves are two entirely different things, the former of which is shaped by a limited perspective of him and the latter perhaps more critical and biased than necessary.

Evelyn doesn't retrieve the flask, letting it cook in his hand while her temple presses harder into the dense mass of his shoulder. Her brow furrows and she struggles with a means of wording what she wants to say, wanting to argue an otherwise moot point but knowing there are other things of interest besides fighting futility.

Burning questions.]

Why are you intent on protecting me? [She finally asks, tired fingers leaving him with the whisky. He needs it more than she does.] I trust you to be honest; don't dress it up in frippery.

[If that isn't the million-dollar question.

The flask becomes, suddenly, fascinating, and he turns it over in his hands a few times. Then a pause, to study the sky. Like the right answer's written on either of those things. ]

Because if what they say is true about the fifth death... [Shit, he's probably already halfway down a wrong road, and there's no turnaround.]

I don't want you to change. [She said no frippery, right? There you go, brutal honesty. ] At all.

[Evelyn waited to ask him this for a reason. Under other (more dangerous, event-related) circumstances the question could have easily been waved away and she would have to accept whatever formulaic reply he gave whether it satisfied or not. Frank mulls it over and Evelyn doesn't press, content to be patient even when patience itself has never been her strong suit.

Practical reasons she expects based upon the execution of his public interrogation - she could die, become dangerous, and none of them would know it, not even Evelyn - and has no illusions about the position in which it has placed her.

But he surprises, with a concession that seems almost impossible to misconstrue into hyperbole.]

...that might be one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

[ It feels like he was a little cornered, but, hey, she deserved the truth, if she wanted it. It doesn't make up for calling for how he had upset her, with his network post, so if that admission repaired some of the damage, it was worth it. ]

I'm sorry.

[Shit, that sounds idiotic.]

I mean, if that's the nicest, that's a pretty shitty bar someone's set.

[It may have been an extremely rare form of luck, that Frank found himself by-proxy insulting a woman with a lengthy history of offering forgiveness for the sake of moving forward. Nursing a grudge when he's done his damnedest to make up for his error would be counterproductive. The truth is all she's ever asked for.

But in a very unladylike manner Evelyn scoffs, smacking his bicep with the back of her hand - a gentle tap compared to the ear-ringing slap she so generously gave him in Tartarus.]

You're sincere. It's an underappreciated quality.

[He grins as she hits his arm, an almost playful slap, and helps himself to another sip from her flask. Not liquid courage as much as another attempt to hold onto a rare moment that...isn't so bad. ]

Life's too unpredictable for bullshit. You hide the truth, and sometimes...you don't get the chance to tell the truth.

[How many times had he told his kids he loved them? Not enough. ]

Mhm. [She caught that smile, Frank. Right at the end.] You hide the truth, and people get hurt.

[Evelyn doesn't intend to fall back into wallowing - it's unseemly, to be so maudlin, she is made of adamantine and nothing less - but it's worth pointing out that Frank himself intended to keep her in the dark for her own protection before coming to terms with the simple fact that he couldn't.]

...now that you've said that, though, if you ever lie to me I'll be very cross.

[Which is the proper English way of saying that she'll hunt him down.]

People get hurt enough in the world. Least you can do is not add to it. [Maybe that's his own way of not adding to the hurt he already does.]

I won't lie to you, Evelyn. [Karen had told him he'd never lied to her. He hadn't. And this wasn't Karen, but she was someone else who had earned that much from him. ]

[He knows how much it means to her for him to say that. He knows how much she values honesty, because he's far more observant than she thinks most people would give him credit for. Frank is no stranger to moving targets and it shows in the way he carries himself, expertly turning her observations around on her.

What else is there but returning the favour? As if Evelyn was ever anything but transparent.]

I won't lie to you, Frank.

[A deeper fear - what happens if she dies again? what happens then? - runs concurrent to the quiet peace she feels leaning against what can only be described as a very warm rock of a person, but it isn't strong enough to pull her out to sea.]

Nah. [He gives a small shrug--not enough to dislodge her resting against his shoulder. ] You don't owe me anything like that.

[He owes her, for the whole...yeah, that thing. And then the levels. ]

Should probably get you inside before you get cold. [He's fine, but women, you know, all delicate and shit.]

I mean what I say.

[She wouldn't have ever lied to him anyway, regardless of the fact that she can't execute falsehoods convincing enough to save her own skin. If she did so it would be a red letter day.

Evelyn manages not to snort again at the suggestion.]

And I'm not a soufflé, I won't fall over with a light breeze. You forget how much time I've spent in the desert.

[Days that melt your very clothing to your skin, and nights that fall to nearly freezing.]

Well, I ain't gonna tell you to start lying to me.

[Classic not-worth-arguing about.]

Spent enough time, myself. But there's no breeze from the water in the desert. [A HA, Evelyn. Damp air: surely a thing to keep ladies safe from.]

You planning to stay out here till sunrise?

[Classic fin de siècle grandmotherly tactics. She would reply that the sea air is renowned for its curative properties, that the smell and the brisk wind are rejuvenating qualities, but it isn't entirely worth the argument. Evelyn is tired, albeit not in the physical sense. Without company she might have stayed out here all night.]

Are you my governess?

[She asks crisply, no sincere fight in the words.]

Don't tell me I have a curfew.

[Hey, he does know what a governess is, thankyouverymuch.]

I doubt your parents would have appreciated the lessons I'd've taught you.

[Not exactly ladylike to learn how to kill a man with a pen, for one thing. Though, from what he's seen, she'd have been a pretty apt student.]

Not a curfew. Just, you know, other people might be worried about you.

Lucky for you, Lord and Lady Carnahan aren't around to voice disapproval.

[Ever a seeker of knowledge, at her core Evelyn is not one to spurn the possibility of participating in learning experiences. It would be wise of Frank to refrain from suggesting things unless he really intends to follow through with showing her precisely how to kill a man with a pen.

She lifts her head to look at him - or rather, the sharp edge of his jaw, the close-cropped hairline so indicative of the American military - for a long moment before glancing back out to wine-dark waters.

On its own the sea reminds her of an old friend no longer in residence, a man with whom she used to hum Bobby Darin songs in the library.]

...all right, [Evelyn finally concedes with a weary sigh.] I suppose I haven't brought the necessary kit for outdoor sleeping, anyway.

More like lucky for them.

[They sounded way too fancy for him--he doubts he would have made much of a positive impression on them.

He feels her eyes on him, looking him over, seeing...he couldn't imagine what. ]

You don't have to. It's just,[He hands her back the flask.] sometimes other people needing you is what keeps you going when you think you can't take anymore. [His Marine buddies, needing him to continue, to keep doing what he did. His family. ]

[Evelyn doesn't often consider the scale upon which she ranks with other people, how much she may matter, what she does and does not contribute. It's no personal evaluation of her own worth because people needing her feels like such a foreign concept. She could hardly believe Sam when he informed her that she was indispensable.

It seemed silly, when she knows that someone would step in to take her place if she ever disappeared.

She turns the flask over in her hands, recalling her Stoicism.]

You remind me of someone.

[Someone might try to do some of her jobs, if she left, and maybe even do them well. But 'take her place'? Frank's sure he wouldn't be the only one arguing that point.

He gives a snort of something like laughter. ]

I swear to god if you say I remind you of your mother I will push you right in the bay.

[He's a man of his word, Evelyn. Don't do it.]

[Evelyn, perpetual temptress of Fate, uses all of her considerable reserves of self-restraint not to say "my mother" just to test whether Frank Castle is really a man of his word after all. It might be a nice night for an unexpected swim.

She elbows him in the side instead, tit for tat.]

A philosopher, actually. Marcus Aurelius.

[Put an end once for all to this discussion of what a good man should be, and be one.]

I'll lend you a book.

[Oh, he'd do it. He didn't mention that he'd dive in right after her to pull her out, and then she'd DEFINITELY be going back to the mansion, carried, wrapped in a blanket, but he would, absolutely, shove her in the bay.]

Sounds Roman.

[See? he's not a complete caveman.]

[Evelyn lives to push her luck with Frank another day.]

He was!

[She replies with clear and evident delight at finding a point he has some reference for, even if the subject itself is very heady. As with many of her favourite pithy aphorisms Evelyn has a number of the Stoic's words tucked away in her mind with all the dead languages, but these days she uses the philosophy more regularly than the translations.]

The last of the great emperors of the Republic. A proponent of Stoicism, and a military leader in later life. I think you would appreciate his...practicality.

Military will fuck up your worldview.

[In good ways, and bad. You swear to die for the ideal of your country, the people of your country. You swear to do...godawful things in the meantime.

He rises to his feet, offering a hand. ]

You need help getting up or am I going to carry you? [He's fine with either.]

[Evelyn takes his hand and gets to her feet with a delicacy reserved for highborn ladies, prim and proper, tugging the blanket from her shoulders and folding it neatly.

It comes out before she can help it, words that leave her mouth without a second thought and possessing a sly air of button-pushing for the sake of pushing buttons in the first place. It isn't that she means to provoke, it's that-]

I can walk, mother.

[No, she absolutely does.]

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