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There was a sense of anticipation in the air that Alex doesn't like one damned bit. It feels too familiar to her, too similar to the way that the world felt after Coralee and Warren, after they'd learned about the Axis Mundae. It had been days since she'd seen Strand, it feels like and Alex missed him. After their fight when she'd gotten back from Turkey, things had been better. Or at least they'd seem better to Alex once he'd gotten his anger out of his system, once he'd used Coralee's name and the nature of his relationship with her as a blunt weapon that was swung whenever the two of them had become too close.

But the thing of it was that Alex hadn't done anything this time. There'd been no fights, nothing that had caused him to pick up his toys and stomp off home as he had so many times before. There was nothing wrong other than the fact that Richard was gone. Her calls were sent to voicemail, her texts and emails went unanswered and even calling Ruby wasn't helpful in the slightest. Not that it ever really was when Alex needed to deal with his broad punk wall of an assistant.

So, she just tried to continue on as normal, as if he was just taking a break outside the room. Throwing herself into her work is second nature for Alex, but Nic had decreed that the studio needed to be empty by ten in order for Alex to get some sleep. It never worked for her of course--Alex just took the work home and spread it on her coffee table. A fresh brewed cup of coffee from her french press had been made and Alex was still sitting on the floor with her back to her couch as she went over everything that she had with a pen in her hand and a heavily filled notebook at her side.

Granted, due to the fact that she was home, Alex was wearing comfortable pajamas: an old and well-loved pnws shirt that had been hers since she’d been an intern (complete with a hole on the collar) and a pair of old boxer shorts that had never belonged to anyone but her—they fit her too well for that. With the heavy makeup that Alex normally wore to hide the dark circle under her eyes, they’re prominent and so is the smattering of freckles across her face. Her hair is still damp from the shower, and tied up into a messy bun at the base of her neck. With Nic gone in Russia and all of her friends having been pushed away due to work, Alex wasn’t expecting company. She definitely wasn’t expecting Richard considering she always went to his father’s house or came to the studio. Oh, she knows he knows where she lives (Alex has pointed out her apartment building more than once) but him coming to her seems entirely laughable at this point.

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While Alex Reagan can be an idiot in some ways (most ways really. And often too) there are some things that even she knows not to do. Like to open your door to someone at midnight when you’re not expecting anyone. So, she checked the peephole and just gasped to see the tall man standing on the other side of the door. Undoing the multiple deadbolts on the door, and then releasing the chain lock, Alex just threw open the door to stare at him. Her look is a mixture of relief (he’s here finally, she thinks. He’s okay) and anger (where the hell has he been for the last few days? Why did he ignore me this time? What did I do?). She can see that he looks okay of course (looks good honestly) but the smell of the cheap liquor wafts towards her below his normal pristine scent and Alex’s nose just wrinkles upwards.

She’s a little more than half-tempted to slam the door in his face, but Alex knows that Richard doesn’t come to her, and he never comes to her drink no matter how normally he’s looking. So Alex just makes a decision without saying anything at first, and steps back to let him into her apartment.

The apartment is filled with bookshelves on the wall, even if most of them have been gathering dust for a while. Awards that she’d received for her reporting are placed here and there on them, making up for most of the negative space on the shelves. They’re signs of happier times, even if she they too collect dust. Photos are arranged around the room—people she loves and doesn’t get to see very often. Nic, the interns when she was one, Alex with friends and at parties. Alex with her parents dressed for graduation. All of them are a sign of older and better times, even if there is a photo of her and Strand that one of the interns had taken when the two of them were working. The frame was cheaper than the others, not because she valued it less but because it had been a gift from one of them during the last Holiday party.

Windows make up another wall, and her curtains are mostly drawn to the city and it’s street lamps outside. As one would expect from Alex, the blue couch is covered in mix and match pillows and comfortable as hell despite of it's age. But it’s the tables that tell the true story of where Alex’s brain is these days: covered in files and folders thick with post it notes and her cramped writing. They’re spread all over the coffee table where her coffee sits and Alex just gestures to the couch or to the old leather recliner covered with a blue throw blanket before she announces over her shoulder. “I think you need some coffee, Richard.” Oh, Alex knows that he prefers tea (and how he takes each of the different varieties of it) but this is definitely a coffee situation. The floor plan is open and the tiny kitchen lays beyond her living room. Freshly brewed coffee already fills the air, mixed with the scent of the calming candle that Alex had lit when she’d gotten home—it’s a contrast of lavender for sleeping of course but what is Alex but contrasts.

She doesn’t make it three steps and only until the door is shut behind him before Alex just asks, unable to keep the hurt anger from her tone: “where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling and went to your father’s house and everything!”

Edited 2020-04-11 21:12 (UTC)

"Tea. Please. It calms me down. And English Breakfast tea wakes me up."

His hair is slightly askew up close as he breathes. Honestly. How to explain. Watching her move, slow and soft his chest hurts. But she comes in and declares that she has a monopoly on his time like that.

"I had to attend to some things." His voice was stiff, "I have academic commitments. You don't have a monopoly on my time Alex don't assume that you can control me." There's an edge to his voice but he deflates.

"I'm sorry. I haven't...I had something I had to take care of. It was about...About Charlie and Coralee." he growls and his voice softens, "It was wrong of me not to tell you." Especially you.

He has promised he will never lie to her again and putting his hands around his neck, not looking at her, he breathes, "But. I have not been...honest with you. And I need to tell you that I'm leaving the country for a speaking engagement in Geneva."

Can lies be comforting? This one is. It makes him almost feel like his old self, drawing up to look at her,"...There are things we should talk about. And it might be the wrong time to talk but we need to."

The flair anger that had welled up inside of her when he snapped back into how he'd been before... A long time ago before really starts to dampen, first to embers and then completely when he both apologies and talks about Charlie. While Coralee would always bring anger and a jealousy that Alex can't help (funny how both of them have jealousy issues about one another when they're not officially anything but work partners and occasionally friends) Charlie always makes her soften. Of all the reasons that Alex has been angry at Coralee, the fact that it cost Richard his daughter had always been the most important reason. Though she loves her parents (and they are intently and definitely her parents without a doubt) she does occasionally still think about the biological ones who had given her up. It's only natural and she doesn't know them or love them.

Richard Strand loves his daughter, that was never in any doubt.

But the hurt doesn't change, and Alex's expressions and voice have always been able to read with things like that--no one requires an outside ability to do so. Thoughts of making his tea are abandoned, and Alex just instinctively takes steps closer to him. Her feet stop when they're close enough to touch if Alex extended her shorter arms, but she doesn't touch him. Instead, Alex just crosses her arms against her chest like a shield as she looks up at him with a shake of her head. "I don't understand..." The words are just soft, that hurt lacing and weaving through each of the sounds that form them. "Richard, it sounds like you're trying to, or are about to say goodbye."

Which he can't be, because the two of them are supposed to be at the center of this together! Alex's thoughts are a swirling mess of emotion. He can't be leaving me. But I... This can't be happening. Not again. But there's also a hurt resignation involved with it, something that is a slow press against an already bruised heart. But at least he's saying goodbye this time, I suppose. At least this way I don't have to tell him that I love him. I don't want to be Coralee and trap him here because I love him. I never want to do that.

Oh. No. When she says it he goes back to Coralee and her words that Alex was bait, a lure, and that if they stayed together he'd lose her. When she says she loves him it's like an obvious electric jolt down his spine and it takes all his composure to not wrap his arms around her.

"I'm-"

He swallows, "I'm going to Geneva."

He has to make a decision. And, struggling to get it out, he swallows, "It's for a conference sponsored by the Deva corporation."

He's not stupid. He knows it's to his death, his possession. It's to something. Just holding onto it, he can't hurt her like this, now that she knows she loves him? He folds his hands on the table.

He wishes Charlie were here. He's never been good with his emotions. For someone so in touch with the emotions of others by default...

He stares at his hands clearly struggling with something.

"...It...It's not like it's forever. I'll come back." His laugh is a little weak, that same familiar little chuckle, "...I just. I have this tendency to disappear."

And he sits. Staring at her, waiting for her response as quietly as he can.

“What? You’re going to be walking into a Davea Corp trap! A Warren trap!” Richard doesn’t need to say that he’s not coming back. He can say that he is but Alex isn’t an idiot. All of this had been leading somewhere and there are definitely days where Thomas Warren seems less like the attractive man who had crashed her coffee date and more like a spider sitting in the centre of a web that he’s been luring the both of them into for a long time. The hurt refuses to ceed to anger in her and she just shakes her head. Richard mentioned Coralee and Charlie, so Alex just invokes the woman’s name again, as much as it tastes like salt and bitterness on her tongue.

“Coralee told you to stay away from Warren and you did it anyway. We did it anyway. Are you forgetting that he threatened me just a few days ago, Richard. I don’t think that doing anything that he wants is a good idea.” Which is an understatement honestly. Alex Reagan may only have a single cell of self-preservation but right now it’s screaming at her to not go and to not let him go either. This is a trap and it seems like everyone knows it.

Alex is certain that he knows it. The certainty is clear and calm in the front of her brain, weighing heavily against it but more heavily against the delicate places of her heart.

“Richard.” Alex just says it softly, in a low and heavy tone. She doesn’t know what she wants to say after it other than just begging him not to go. Other than begging him to take her with her so he doesn’t need to walk into the spider’s parlor alone. Other than begging him not to lie to her about his coming back this time when it sure doesn’t feel like he’s going to and he knows it.

Alex Reagan isn’t psychic by any stretch of the imagination. That’s not who she is and that’s probably for the best considering how she already is. But what she does have is gut instincts and they rarely lead her wrong. Gut instincts were what led her to making those eleven calls, to the tapes being connected, to Coralee being alive, to Keith Dabbic being in danger and to the fact that what was happening to the world was real and it was definitely her fault. Nic and Strand himself had told Alex that it wasn’t a spy thriller right up until the moment it was complete with a tire-screeching van and an operative not dead wife telling them to come with them if they wanted to live.

Her gut is telling her that if he leaves right now then he’s not coming back. Alex doesn’t want it to be right (she’s praying to something that she doesn’t even believe in that it’s wrong) but she knows it is.

So she just whispers softly: “please don’t. “

What does he believe? He believes in science and facts. He believes in reason, not just because of his father, but to spite his father, to spite Warren, to spite everyone. The world can be miraculous without some kind of divine entity - but there was always an entity anyway. Something crawling through his skin just waiting. Destiny - except destiny wasn't real. It wasn't real.

Alex wasn't destiny. Alex was a force of nature. He doesn't stand. Instead he stares at her like a lost animal looking for it's home before his features grow firm.

"I don't have a choice in this Alex." They will hurt you if I don't. and not just Warren anymore.

He draws in a slow calming breath, "I'm not going in unprepared Alex. New information has come to light that would turn the scenario to my advantage."

He's on firmer ground here and indeed, intrigued to experience it. Scientifically, strategically. You could always use help with it.

"...When have I ever, been unprepared for a situation? Everything will be fine." He doesn't believe that entirely but maybe he could project it somehow, "Everything will be fine, and you could...you could come with me."

It's hard for her to hear this, to hear it and not to want to argue with him. Warren has been so far ahead of them at every turn that Alex doesn't know if they can ever be really prepared for this. She just twists her fingers, braiding them together and Alex need to just take a deep breath for a moment. Immediately, Alex's first instinct is for her to say yes. Of course it's to say yes when he asks her to come with her into whatever this thing in Geneva is. Even knowing it's probably a trap, even knowing he thinks that he's not coming back, it's still to say yes. Alex Reagan has never been good at denying her first instincts, especially when it comes to Richard Strand, and for better or for worse, she's not going to start now.

Especially considering he doesn't have a choice. If there's one thing that's become more and more apparent to Alex over the course of their three years working together, it's that whatever 'choices' Richard has had, for the most part they've only been the illusion of choice. Corlaee, his skepticism, whatever abilities he may have had as a child, those had never been choices that he'd made. More than that, Alex knows that she, herself, has taken his choices away. Finding Coralee, revealing the past he'd preferred that would have remained long secret, just shoving herself into his life--Alex had done those things. Out of what had happened in his life, it seemed like only Charlie had been a choice that he'd made, but that relationship too had been tainted and twisted by what Coralee and her actions had caused.

She wants him to have a choice, Alex always does now. There's no doubt that his offering for her to come with him is a choice that he's making for himself. How could she say no? Not that she would have said no even before all of that.

So, Alex just nods quickly. "Of course I'll come, Richard. You and me at the center of this, right?" The smile she gives him isn't quite a normal Alex Reagan one, but she's trying to find the space within herself to make one anyway. For him. So, even knowing that this is a trap that neither of them is probably going to come back from, Alex just sits down next to him, close enough to touch him and she asks softly: "what's this new information that has so convinced you that you need to go?" There, that was a little bit easier--it was less about their feelings (well, Alex's feelings and her love for him) and was more like their normal professional dynamic.

Even if it hadn't been professional in a very long time.

He can feel those emotions. Maybe he's always picked up on those emotions, why she was good to be around, why she was intriguing. He stares at her and folds his hands before...

"I know the Deva group set up my speaking engagement. And that Warren will be there." Coralee was like a brick wall and he wondered just how far behind he was, in managing this ability. He deflates a little, "I really hate to be a bother but I really could use that cup of tea Alex. Please."

Watching Richard deflate is hard, and her concern doesn’t need to be psychic to be felt when she looks at him. Giving his arm a tentative squeeze, Alex just gets up from the couch. “It shouldn’t take long for the water to heat up. I had just made coffee.” In her French press of course because Alex Reagan is a coffee snob always.

But she does have some tea, most of it’s supposed to be to help her sleep but she’s got a little collection. Not as much as the one for him that lives in her desk drawer at work, but enough of one that she’s able to find a box of English breakfast. Putting the tea into a mug that she’d not been allowed to bring to work because it says ‘fuck you before my coffee’ and has a picture of a ghost on it. It had been a birthday present from Amalia and is Alex’s second favorite mug. Her first favorite is the size of a soup can and holds basically three cups. It’s the one that’s already on the table.

Alex’s concern for him is a running theme as she goes about making his tea the way that he likes it and she knows that he hasn’t eaten because he doesn’t when he’s stressed out. So after a minute she grabs one of the brownies from her fridge (there’s not much in there honestly: milk, juice, wine, take out containers and mustard. Alex doesn’t cook) and adds that to the top of the mug of tea still within its plastic container.

That done, Alex just hands it to him and sits down next to him again, close enough that their knees almost brush.

His mind is on other things, wholly on Coralee and her declaration she would remove Alex if needed when she puts the tea and brownie down in front of him, brushing against him electric and he stares at it blankly because what is he supposed to do oh he's supposed to eat. Right. That was a thing normal people did.

Just say it.

He swallows. He's told her everything. Maybe it was time for no secrets. It really was.

"Coralee reached out to contact me. To warn me about Warren and she confirmed...something that I've been thinking of since you and I started working together.

Since you found out about my sister." He breathes, "Something I began to suspect that she confirmed about the pseudoscientific bullshit my father put me through as a child."

For a long moment Alex just stares at him, and she tilts her head a bit as she does so. Her hand automatically presses forward, resting against his arm once more because she knows that's the only touch that he allows her to do and Alex is definitely a toucher. Especially when someone is as bothered as he is. The touch has gotten her through many interviews, because touch reminds people that they aren't alone.

Alex has never wanted to remind anyone that they were not alone as much as she wanted to do so to Richard Strand. But professionalism, her journalism and Strand himself only made it so that this was allowed. And even then, it had been new before he'd gone away for the first time and only since the night that Coralee had kidnapped them in order to save them from Warren.

It's on the tip of her tongue to say that Cheryl had been the one to reach out to Alex, that she'd been the one who was insistent upon being on the podcast. But she doesn't, not yet anyway. Instead Alex just listens with a frown, fighting the urge to automatically be angry at Coralee. Its not a new one: it's been there for two years.

Alex Reagan is normally a woman of many questions upon questions, but right now she settles for one: "What is it?"

"When she disappeared and I tried to go to the woods to find her." Rational. Calm. Accept it. This is natural. Don't treat it as some gift, that's your father. It's nothing to be worshiped or wrong. It's human. It's just like someone who is good at math or athletic like Braun was always talking about.

How he knew Braun was a fraud.

"When I tried to use the abilities that I used to help me find Bobby Mames...it wasn't that I couldn't use them. It was that she blocked me. Because she has the same abilities that I do. That Charlie does."

He stares at Alex, unflinching, uncompromising, before taking a long sip of the tea and peeling off a corner of the brownie.

"Because she's psychic and Charlie is because I also have a latent psychic ability."

That he knew nothing about. But he was always am an who could fake it til he made it. Who could rely on reason and facts. This was now just a part of him. Accept it and move on. A biological action. No less natural then breathing.

Edited 2020-04-12 04:43 (UTC)

Alex just watches him for a moment, still in the aftermath of the bomb that he had just dropped into her lap. She's not sure how to respond to it. But her return look is unflinching too. Alex doesn't scream or point her finger or demand a million dollars for proof of the supernatural when it's come out of his mouth.

But while she's silent, Alex's thoughts aren't, and if she hadn't learned to keep them off of her face, then she definitely wouldn't ever learn to be able to keep someone who had the abilities Richard did out of her head. That bitch. I knew it was someone who was probably blocking him, but I thought it was Warren. That bitch how could she hurt him like that? God, that fucking woman didn't even have the guts to tell him and then disappear. But the most important thought that was running under all of them was: God, I hate her so much.

Taking a deep breath, Alex speaks and her words are more calm and less chaotic than the ones that are working in her mind. "So you've been blocking it unconsciously? All this time?" It makes sense to her really, burying things deep and presenting a stone facade is one of the things that Richard Strand did best. She suspects that it was his way of asserting control over it. It doesn't surprise her.

"Does Charlie know that she has it? Does she use it?" There's a question that Alex thinks but doesn't speak because she can't help it. Is that one of the reasons that you'd been estranged for so long? That you couldn't accept it and she can?

"Don't...Don't hate her. Try not to hate her." But it could be something that he responds to just because it's the right thing to say, "I think that...I think that Coralee has her...reasons but her reasons are hers and they are no longer mine. We..."

He brushes it away, "She taught Charlie how to manage her ability. And so her skills are very well developed."

Despite everything there is a brief flicker of emotion, of a smile, and it's gone again, "She can take care of herself. She'll be all right I think. What concerns me now is the two of us and whatever Warren has planned for...me."

Warren is not going to do it. Admitting this skill makes him feel stronger and whatever happens he can take him on. He'll kill him.

And you will come to the door. And you will open it.

To spare Alex? To spare the planet? Absolutely. For all of humanity terrors, he loves them.

Alex's eyes go wide behind her glasses, because that wasn't something that she said aloud and she knows it. When she realizes how he knew it, Alex's cheeks just automatically go pink and she lowers her head for a moment, counting like she always has to when she's angry or upset. It's not that so much at this moment, it's more Alex trying to clear her brain out for the rest of this conversation.

But there's one persistent thought that just rushes through her head for all of Alex's attempts to stop it: Does this mean he knows that I love him? She doesn't know if she wants an answer to that question. She doesn't know if there is even an answer to it.

So, instead she focuses on something else and just asks: "If Coralee taught Charlie does that mean that Charlie knew that Coralee wasn't dead? All this time?" It's a question that hurts her, because it's so easy for her to imagine how much it could possibly hurt him.

Alex is steadfastly ignoring the statement about them being an us and Warren for the moment. It seems like two separate topics almost.

"Yes."

He stares at nothing, "It's her business. I don't blame her. I was emotionally distant and when you are a child... I don't blame her. She was rightfully angry with me about a number of things and ultimately it's between her and I."

His features harden, but he stares at his hands and flexes them.

"Besides I don't know the extent of her skills. We each have different abilities. Hers extends more towards ghosts and understanding people mine extends to finding things and seeing ghosts and demons. The ghosts and demons part comes with the package. As does hearing another individual's thoughts."

He can't look at her at that part, instead pinching the bridge of his nose, "I've known about this for years Alex. I've just never embraced it."

Alex's frown is hurt, and sad and she just sits back a bit, using the hand that had been on his arm in order to take a long sip of her coffee. White Alex drinks, she's counting in an attempt to get her anger under control. Alex doesn't get angry very often honestly, not like this. It's not hot and burning and pain below it. But now it is, and Alex just sets her cup down. When she's angry she needs movement. The floor below her bare feet grounds her, and does the way that her hands move when she does.

"All this time. All this time." Alex begins, because she can't help it. "You've known that you had these abilities. All this time we looked into cases that you'd said weren't connected but they were and you knew that. I don't understand how you could just believe and not say anything. Know and not say anything." He voice is sharper than she wants it to be, and there's a threat of tears within as there always is when Alex is this upset.

"I don't know what to say, Richard." And it's true she doesn't. "I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know how we come back from the fact that I always suspected that you were psychic, since I learned about Bobby and since you went looking for Coralee but I'd assumed you'd buried it like a trauma. But you knew."

There's a pause, and the hurt is more visceral within it now. "Did you read my thoughts? Did you know how much I was falling apart last year and just didn't say anything when I wasn't sleeping and was chanting the name of demons in my sleep?" Did you not know how bad I was? Her thoughts keep going even if her words don't. Did you know how worried and scared I was for you? Do you know that I thought all of this was my fault and I've been blaming myself for it for so long?" And then there were two finally thoughts, and both of them hurt: Did you realize I thought I was losing you and it was driving me insane?

And then finally as quietly and as sadly as Alex Reagan can make her mind: Do you know I love you and have for such a long time?

Edited (html fail) 2020-04-12 17:22 (UTC)

"You're not-I don't think I'm explaining it well." He rubs at his temple because he can feel her hurt and anger and it's making his head hurt, "It's not that I-"

He's floundering, and for the first time she might see him unable to speak, "It's not that I knew It's not that I was...I knew but I didn't want to believe it. It was pseudo-science and it scared me." He pauses, "And my father would beat me whenever I questioned it but it also made no sense. I've always been reasonable, I've always been rational and I buried it. I refused to believe it."

He wants to stutter and stammer, "...Alex, I should have been there for my daughter and I should have told you. I'm sorry I didn't. And I..."

He doesn't pull her but he does reach for her hands, "I thought I could...will it away. And I am so sorry."

And this is not the time for that. She has indirectly confessed that she loves him.

Alex had known that Howard Strand was a monster, Cheryl had told her that Richard had gotten 'the strap' when he saw the Tall Man when he was seven. But she'd not realized how pervasive it had been how-- many times he'd done that. How it had been every time Richard had questioned it. Alex knows about conditioning, she knows that Richard has always had a will that's like that of a force of nature. It was one that an equal and opposition force of nature had needed to come in and break down--like Alex herself was when she was armed with her show.

She knows that he's struggling. Alex can see it in every part of him, and she just frowns, concern for him darkening her doe eyes behind her glasses, setting the line of her mouth in it. When he reaches for her hands, Alex stops, and she gives him one of them, wrapping her fingers around his own. But if there's one thing that Alex Reagan has always been, it's a mix of belief and hope, and right now she draws upon that strength to do something that she'd never done before even if she'd considered doing it many times in the past. Her empty hand just reaches up and cups his cheek gently and carefully, as if she was worried that she'd startle him into bolting away again.

And she was worried about that, because Richard was the sort who would bolt, who had bolted from her in the past. She's believing that this is a moment of change and a turning point for them, so that maybe it was creating the space enough for Alex to do this. Alex doesn't say that she loves him, she doesn't kiss him. Instead what Alex does is just try and comfort him with her thumb moving in gentle soothing circles against his cheekbone.

"It's okay, Richard." Her voice is soft. "We'll... We'll figure it out. We always do. Somehow."

She's a lure. He can hear his wife's voice in his head and he closes his eyes before looking at her with love. Genuine love. He's fallen into this. Maybe he was meant to.

His hand moves to stroke her hair, "I know."

His bright blue gaze meets hers, "...And. I know. Alex. I know. I know. and I..."

He moves to lean against her across the table, "...I'm not good at this."

For a moment, Alex isn't sure what he's saying, and the confusion clouds her face, making her frown. There's a bit of willful ignorance there, because well... how could there not be after so long when there'd been those moments between them that Alex would have sworn that he could have read her mind. But then again, now there's this moment and she just says softly: "oh."

There's another pause before she drags the sound of it out: "Ooooh." For a moment, she doesn't know what else to say. The secret that she'd kept so close to her heart for so long is finally out and now she's just doesn't know what to do especially considering that she didn't actually say it, that she didn't speak the words aloud in the normal way like she would have with everyone (anyone) else other than him.

So, she does, her voice is low as she leans forward again. It's not the storytelling voice that she'd use for the show, or the normal conversational tone that she'd been using. So, she whispers it softly: "I love you, Richard Strand."

He can still hear Coralee practically taunting him with this is a lure, she's a lure and Warren will use her to hurt you...

It solidifies something. That he has to sacrifice himself. That he can't let Warren take any of them and Tiamat...Tiamat.

The smell of the water and thunder is strong. Join with me and save her. Join with me and open the door and you can be with her forever, she'll be safe. I've waited for you Richard, for so very long...

He pulls her into a kiss. It's gentle and tentative and he holds her tightly then, across the table, elbow of his suit dragging into his brownie.

"...I love you too Alex Reagan."

There. It's out in the open. Professional ethics be damned. It's like there's a click in his head.

There's a new voice too. Take her with you. This will be fun.

"...I need a drink." Fuck he should have brought up the scotch, "And I think...we should...order Chinese. No. Sushi. I want sushi."

Alex doesn't know (can't know) what's going on inside of his head. She doesn't know about the voice of the goddess or whatever this other voice is or Coralee or anything else. But what she does know is that she loves him, and that he loves her and finally finally they've gotten out of their own ways to admit that. She kisses kisses him back with gentleness, but there's nothing tentative about it. Alex Reagan has always let her heart lead her rather than her head and this is just another case of it. She's not worried about ethics or anything else.

For the first time in a long time, not even the end of the world. Because Alex believes in him, and she believes that the two of them together can stop whatever Warren has planning, because they're a good team and she's too stubborn to let the world end now that they've finally gotten this piece of it sorted out.

Alex just kisses him once more before she draws back with a grin. "I don't have scotch, but I do have wine. Or vodka if you want something hard. Do you want the normal for sushi?" Because of course she's got a sushi place in her favorites on grubhub and she's got what his order is down and has for ages. Pulling out her phone from her pocket, she opens it up, leaning her head against his shoulder for a second as she does so.

It's so simple. It's so adorable.

"I have cheap scotch in the car, but I'll take wine." He leaned against her hair, kissing her hair, "For now."

He strokes her hair. He was always doing that. Coralee's hair was always so soft. Alex's is too - he missed being able to do this. Try not to think ahead. Try not to plan in advance. Try not to...Try not to do that Richard just be in the moment.

"...We do make a good team." He runs the other hand through his own hair and pulls away, "I'm moving to the couch. My back hurts."

Edited 2020-04-13 00:56 (UTC)

Alex just beams up at him, her eyes alight as she just grins with practically her whole body. Is she tempted to take him just down into her bedroom? Of course she is. She's a grown ass woman who knows what she wants, and she wants him. And she's wanted him since the moment where she'd walked into his office, god all those years ago. But for now, Alex just lets him good and pads into the kitchen, placing their normal order as she does so. She doesn't want him to make the decision to have sex with her when he's soaked with scotch, which is why Alex is glad that he'd picked the wine.

She's got a good bottle of red that she'd been saving for a special occasion in the rack on her counter, and if anything qualifies as a special occasion, Alex muses, the night where Richard Strand said that he loved her back definitely is one of them. Using her electric corkscrew (Alex drinks a fair amount of wine and it's way easier than trying to find to find the manual one when she's already had part of a bottle) Alex opens the bottle and then comes back into the living room, holding two glasses by the stems in one hand, and the bottle in the other. "I hope a Cabernet Sauvignon is okay? It's local, I grabbed it from the farmer's market actually." Because even though Alex isn't a wine snob like he is she knows that the wines from Washington are on the up and up.