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text; pockets full of stones

[She very much debates sending this. It isn't her style, not after the losses she's endured, not after the way this place takes, and takes, and takes, so much that it becomes commonplace, that she should find herself numb to it. Evelyn doesn't particularly anticipate replies; people go missing every day.

Her son's room is entirely empty. Evelyn knows what it means.]

If anyone sees a tow-headed boy, eight years old, please contact me.

His name is Alex.

E. O'Connell

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[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.]

[It actually takes him a second to process her words. Oh. She did not.

She did, and deliberately so.

He pulls her closer, from the hand she had offered him, and swings her bodily up, stepping close to dangle her off the end of the dock, over the water.]

I'm sorry. Did you say something? [Think carefully. He might be trying, hard, to repress a grin.]

F-

[It is as yet undetermined whether Evelyn intended to curse, or say his name, or both, because the swift jerk in that results in being scooped up like some kind of misbehaving cat startles her so much that she doesn't have the time to do anything but squeak and cling to his shoulders like a limpet.

Glancing toward the dark water (the fall isn't far, but even with her background in deserts Evelyn loathes the cold more than anything else) she concedes that she might have erred in attempting to call what she assumed was a bluff. Her immediate defence is to push further, but she very much doesn't want to trod back to the mansion soaking wet.

Clearing her throat and gingerly facing him - not that difficult to do when he's inches away - Evelyn wrestles a diplomatic response out to salvage her pride.]

I...retract my previous statement.

[ He's never going to admit it, but he's quietly impressed at how, even now, she manages to keep some decorum or dignity about her, even as her feet dangle just a few inches over the cold water.

And he realizes it's probably inappropriate, or wrong, or something, to hold a woman like this--almost an embrace, still too close to an embrace for him to allow in his world.

Still, he allows himself a smirk, something like victory, as he steps back, swinging her back to safety, releasing her, almost to quickly, from his arms. ]

That's what I thought.

[Evelyn might blame the ability to master her expressions on her Englishness, the stiff upper lip that's been drummed into the populace and manifests its repression in wry senses of humours. Truthfully, she's always been able to keep a level head, and fears nothing more than the panic that feeds into people so as to make them nonsensical.

Everything has a time, and a place. She once allowed herself to be taken captive that her friends might live, sporting all the austerity and calm one might expect from violinists on the deck of a sinking ship.

Of course he looks smug, then, upon releasing her to solid ground, and Evelyn is grateful for the dim light out here lest the heat in her face show. Adjusting her collar demurely, blanket in hand, she gives him a pointed look.]

May I assume you intend to escort me home?

[The pointed look, and the cool night air against his skin, what had been warmed by contact, remind him he'd, in her fancy speak, 'taken a liberty' or something. He's hoping the lowlight hides the sudden flush on his face.]

That's the plan.

Unless that's what your mother would do. [There, see, he's making a joke of it. Everything's normal.]

[Blessedly, any liberties that may or may not have been taken were absolutely earned, given that Evelyn herself succumbed to provocation just to see if he'd really shove her into the ocean. Telling her not to do something is the rough equivalent of giving her a gilded sign emblazoned with the opposite sentiment.

She blinks at him again, expectant.]

Are you going to offer me your arm?

[He can understand the impulse all too well himself. Testing limits was one of the ways you could feel you had some freedom.

He looks at her, confused, for a moment, as she stands. In New York, it was something to hold a girl's hand, and that was kind of intimate.

But he's done it before, in formal Marine balls. He does know what she means, so he straightens, formally, offering an arm. ]

Want me to do the bow, too? [Because he can do that, if she wants.]

[Frank almost clicks his damn heels together as he extends an arm at a rigid, militaristic angle, and Evelyn does not have it in her to keep from executing a superbly pleased smile at the acquiescence.]

Later.

[She says drily - more promise than casual remark - gently looping her arm in his. It is a very old-fashioned thing, to be escorted like this, but she is a very old-fashioned person. There's no sense in cutting ties with what makes her herself just to satisfy others.]

Pity you're not in your dress blues.

[He's going to adjust the blanket over her shoulders, and if she says one word about her mother, well...she better not. Besides, it gives his eyes something to do other than meet hers and the pleased smile on her face.]

If I thought it'd cheer you up.... [He's lost children. He knows how it hurts. He'd do pretty much anything if it thought it would make it hurt just a tiny bit less for her.] Even the saber.

[No more matronly jesting tonight, anyway - it's a hair gauche, given that half of this party of two is a mother herself. She allows the careful adjustment about her shoulders with the dignity of someone who might be receiving a cape, not a blanket, and hums at the suggestion. It's very charming, considering the source. He did say his dress blues were exceptionally sharp.]

I may take you up on that another time, if the offer still stands.

[Her smile sobers as they turn to walk back across the dock, toward the mansion. With it looming overhead in the dark, an ominous portent of everything she knows it takes, Evelyn almost wishes she'd thought to bring a tent out here for the evening.]

Mostly I appreciate the company.

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text; pockets full of stones

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