[Silence] There wasn't much warning when he left. There was the blasted silence of a splintered totemlink; there was a single painful meeting in the warehouse where he'd lived for years. Then a few weeks of silence, no contact, during which he nailed up so many bodies that the Umbra around the warehouse began to look like the Appian Way in the time of the Romans.
Then, one night, a note tucked into Imogen's door. It was simple and brief, written out in Decker's heavy, clumsy block print.
Came by while you was out. Check phone.
There's a message on her phone. It's possible she heard it before she ever saw the note. It, too, was simple and brief -- his low drawl distinctive and characteristic across the tiny speaker.
My father axed me ta come back ta Storm Hammer. Ta stay. There's a short pause. I said yeah. A longer pause; a few aborted breaths. He might've wanted to ask her to go with him. He might've decided against it. He might've wants to offer reasons, rationale; decided against that, too.
In the end, Thought you should know.
And a click.
That's it then; all the advance notice anyone anywhere got. Soon thereafter, the Barracuda disappears from the warehouse. His scant personal belongings clear out too. The shared things -- much of it scattered, hurled around the warehouse, shattered against walls and broken against concrete -- stay where they are. He locks the warehouse when he leaves, and slowly but surely, those dark elementals of cement and steel fall back into slumber.
The trophypoles stay where they are, their grisly burdens melting away to bones.
Weeks go by. Months. Then one day there's another message on her phone.
I'm'on be passin' through Chicago tomorrow night, 'bout 9pm. Meet me outside tha Caern, will ya? In the short silence, she can hear activity in the background; voices, clanging metal, rough laughter. Then, Please
When Imogen comes to the edge of the Caern, she can see Decker just past the chain-link fence. He's not alone. He's with a small cadre, men and women Imogen has never seen before. They are unmistakeably Garou, with stark faces and fierce eyes. Unmistakeably Fenrir, though some are fair and others swarthy, some bearded, others cleanshaven, some tattooed and pierced, others carven with rune-scars.
Though Imogen knows the Modi's rank is very nearly exalted now, it is not immediately apparent who the leader is. There are two in the group who look him in the eye, who speak to him and to one another with the ease of equality, which is perhaps a feeling that Silence had all but forgotten in his time in Chicago. There are four others who are clearly of lower rank. The deference is in their body language.
A small war-band, then. A group of warriors and, perhaps, their proteges. A stopover in the Caern of the Maelstrom before taking the moonbridge onward to ... wherever.
There's a sense that they're idling; waiting like passengers at a bus stop. There's light conversation ebbing and flowing. Silence has not grown any more talkative, though. He doesn't say much. He watches the borders of the Caern, this Caern his hands helped shape, this Caern where his entire pack, finally, was buried. When he sees Imogen, he unfolds his arms from across his chest and hikes up the short slope the roadside.
He looks different from the last time they met. Better. He looks lean and alert, the savageness beating under his skin tempered by a reasserted control. His hair is mowed down to a buzz; his beard down to bristles. His clothes are rough and handmade, though. Dedicated. Leathers and hides. He wears a broad belt, on which hangs a number of small talismans or trophies, their purposes obscure.
His eyes gleam in the dimness. He looks her over, and that at least is the same: slow and unashamed, taking her in.
"Hey," he says quietly. And, "Thanks fer comin' out."
[Imogen] She had parked her car in sight of the unknown men and women, of the caern, where she cannot tread though her name is writ there where she'll never see. The engine is cut, the headlights burnt out, her body silhouetted in the dim lighting of the fading gloaming as she exits the vehicle, moving to the front of the car, and there to wait, coming no closer, not calling out, not raising a hand in greeting. Her gaze lowers as the Modi approaches, dropping to the ground and then to her pockets, to which her hands stray like she might pull out her cigarettes.
Perhaps it's the location. Perhaps she's quit. Her hands fall away from her blazer, lowering to hook into the belt loops of her low slung jeans. She'd looked down first. Away. When the distance truly begins to close, she raises her gaze - and this has not changed either, much like his regard for her.
Nothing else about it is the same. The defiance, hardset; her jaw, hardset. Her pulse beating hard in her throat.
Her voice is steady, remote and like his, quiet.
"I nearly didn't." She's barely looked at him - does not look at his clothing or his face. Meets his eyes and does nothing else.
The kinfolk of Stormhammer are nothing like this. They know their place. Their duty. They accept it.
"So. Why am I here?" She means: What do you want?
[Silence] Perhaps he should be shocked by her directness, offended by her implicit defiance. The kin of Storm Hammer are not like this. They are hearty and bold as all kin of Fenrir are and must be, but they know their place, and they live it the way their ancestors have lived it for a thousand years, ten thousand, more.
He doesn't know a lot about them, though. His life now is war and battle, the rough fire-forged camaraderie of brothers and sisters in arms in the Sept that is now his. Always, before, he let his hair grow out when he went there. Wore the clothes and the beard like a disguise, as though to tell everyone, or to remind himself: this is not who I am. This is not where I belong.
Different, now. That's changed, too.
"Thought I oughta see ya," he says. "Figger out where things stand 'tween us."
[Imogen] She doesn't speak immediately. Silence cuts between them like blades. When she speaks, her voice is no balm.
"I believe a note under my door and a voicemail on my mobile already made that clear, don't you?"
[Silence] There's a brief hardening at his jawline, a flexion that squares the angles of his face. Then he lets it go, exhales with a short glance down. Back to her again, eyes the same stormy grey as ever.
"'m sorry 'bout that. Ain't had time fer much else."
It's not an apology intended to excuse, or even offered in hopes of healing the palpable rift between them. Everything about her speaks of anger turned cold and resolute: attitude and voice, word choice that he knows - know from seven, eight years of experience - is no accident. Seven or eight years they gave each other. Grown closer, grown up, changed; and finally this. Growing apart, perhaps.
There's a gulf between them right now broader than the distance between storm hammer and maelstrom; more impenetrable than that borders of this Caern, which no longer allow kinfolk within. Even kinfolk of such renown as this one, who is getting close to goddamn Cliath Ahroun status in her own right.
After a long pause:
"So that's it then?"
[Imogen] Those who've seen her, day by day likely miss the differences. There are some which are undeniable, but put to her anti-social nature. She plays her guitar less. Sings less. Visits the bars less and works more.
To him, though, who at least once knew her body and skin, her muscle, sinew and bone, who has had the dubious benefit of months of separation. Well.
She was never soft, but she's harder now. Skin closer to the bone.
She looks away. Not down, away, away from the caern, from the lake, from the unfamiliar Garou. Away from him, toward the street, the distant hard lines of squat warehouses. Her eyes are dark, nearly black now in the fading light. Her skin as pale as ever, so delicate that one might almost see the blood move, beneath. Her hair is brilliant, red and vibrant, pulled back from her face, held in place by a covered elastic band. She's dressed plainly; as if she might have been in Cabrini Green before this, in Bronzeville, muting her vibrancy as best she can by simple, serviceable clothing.
Her jaw moves as she flexes it, an ache forming in her molars, then loosens it, her hand closing as her jaw eases, replacing one tension for another.
"What do you want, Rohl?" she's not spoken his name in - she doesn't know how long. "For me to say it's over, or that I -" she cuts off, rather than hesitating. "Or that it's not."
[Silence] "I wantcha ta tell me what you want," he says. "I wantcha ta decide -- "
That is a hesitation. A sharp cutoff -- but a hesitation as well. He frowns, shifts his weight, and in that singular gesture is nearly a decade's worth of memory. He's always had that animal ease of motion. That absolute surety of motion. He's always shifted his weight from foot to foot just like that, not awkward and fidgeting but smooth, slow, with unconscious bone-deep strength.
"I wantcha ta come to Storm Hammer with me. I wantcha with me. As my mate. And I wantcha ta know that life ain't gon' be nothin' like whatcher used ta. 'r maybe even what you kin stand.
"So I wantcha decide if yer gon' come with me 'r if yer gon' stay here."
There's a pause. Decker has faced down a hell of a lot. He's killed things that should never have been born, much less be able to die. He's grown strong, grown powerful. Things that would crush the younger wolves amongst his small cadre are negligible to him now.
Still -- this is hard for him. And he has to force the words:
"'cause we ain't mates if we's seven hundred miles apart."
[Imogen] Her eyes shut briefly while he speaks. Not long, not for long at all, but for long enough to be more than a blink. To be an expression of something. Pain, resistance. Some emotion which she cannot contain with her eyes open.
They open again. They remain away from him. He finishes his hard words, his request.
"Be nothing there, wouldn't I? Just your mate, your woman. A thing that spreads my legs and can't even breed. A broken mare." The words are half introspective, so quiet they are not even directed to him. Her gaze lowers then down, forward but down still, her gaze on the ground between them. Her closed fist taps her thigh, once, twice, thrice. It isn't fidgeting, quite, but it is certainly a small symptom of her inner agitation.
"If you remembered who I am at all, you'd never think this was even a possibility." She raises her gaze.
"If you want me, you can have me here. I've lost enough."
[Silence] There's a flash of anger in his eyes -- not at her but at the words she says, the concepts: broken mare. a thing that spreads my legs. It crackles through the grey like lightning across a hurricane sky. Silence is controlled now, his rage back under the iron fist of his will, but he is not tame. He is nothing close to tame.
She's always known that. From the moment they met on adjoining balconies in a Jersey suburb; to a day in the Barrens pushing through terrain too rugged for her, though she took it uncomplainingly; to standing knee-deep in flat saltwater in the gulf of mexico; to this moment. Decker Rohl is the son of his forefathers, a Fenrir to the bone, savage and raw and brutish. His rage is like a fire in his blood, licking up at the slightest fuel thrown its way.
All he says, though, is this -- singular and fierce:
"I remember who you is."
A few moments pass. He draws a breath that expands his chest; looks over his shoulder for a second. The other Garou are not looking at him. Perhaps they've very deliberately not looking this way.
He turns back, exhaling that breath now.
"'f I come back ta Chicago," he says, quiet, "'ll look ya up, 'Gen."
[Imogen] Both hands have closed now, two fists, useless, impotent. She is a slight woman, if an indomitable one. She fights with her mind, with a gun, if pressed with a blade. She does not fight with her fists. If she did, she would be ineffective. Useless.
She is not that.
Her jaw is tensed as well. There is little about her that is not tense. Her body taut like a guitar's E string tuned up too high, vibrating at the strain, on the edge of breaking.
I remember who you are. He says and she does not answer. She neither agrees nor offers disagreement. Denies or concedes.
What does it matter, anyway.
Her mouth seals shut, and behind the seam, unseen, her teeth press on her bottom lip, leaving it raw. She resists the immediate, visceral reaction, the words which catch in her chest.
Come back.
Her ribs are a cage, creaking, aching but ultimating withstanding the storm.
Instead, she says: "I suppose, then, there's nothing left to be said."
[Silence] Nothing left to be said. Nothing for him to say, either. There's room here for some corny one-liner, some sappy phrases about love and devotion or, at the least, remembrance. There's room for a goodbye kiss. Hell. One last beautiful night together. Something absurd and storybook like that,
but that's not their style. And never was.
After a long pause, when one or the other is on the brink of turning away -- Silence holds his hand out. Not for a handshake, but the way he always did: palm up, fingers a little open.
[Imogen] Her eyes lower to the offered hand - the first time she's acknowledged he is more than eyes to look upon directly, the first time she's taken in any part of him that hasn't been in defiance.
"I can't." Quiet, low.
[Silence] There's a beat of silence. Then Decker lowers his hand back to his side. The nod is the same as it ever was -- a tilt of his head upward, unhurried and thuggish.
"Yeah okay."
That's the same too.
Not much lingering after that. Another second or two. A beat of the heart, two. Then he takes a step back, and another. It's on his mind to wish her a good night, or to tell her to drive safe; tell her he'll see her later. Something of the sort. He doesn't.
[Imogen] "Rohl." As he begins to turn, or some half second before. If he turns back, she looks at him, her eyes lowering then lifting, her fingers moving slightly. She remains where she is, unapproaching, as her gaze flicks beyond him toward the Garou who loiter within the caern's boundaries.
"Make sure one o' them knows to tell me if you die," she says, lifting her chin to indicate them. "Will you?"
[Silence] [*erases last couple lines from last post, transplants 'em here!*]
A hesitation -- a brief furrow of the brow. Then he nods.
Turns, sturdy ugly boots crunching on the loose gravel as he strides down the embankment. Purposeful now.
When he reaches the others they rise with an air of expectation and waiting come to fruition. No one offers sympathy or commiseration, or even gives the slightest hint of knowing -- or caring -- what words were exchanged between the Modi and the Fianna-blooded woman who was, by all accounts, his mate. Those who were sitting stand. Those who stood hoist their bags if they have one; check their belongings. There's a sense of ranks closing, and then they move out.
[Imogen] She does not stay to watch him go. As he turns away, so does she. While he approaches the caern's fence, he can hear the choppy unadjusted sound of the Volvo's engine as she starts it, the gravel crunching beneath the vehicle's wheels as she pulls away.