Punctuality is the least that can be asked of her. He's asked her to do worse, of course, far worse, but there are few things in life that come as easy as showing up. Lorelei makes an effort to ensure that she's settled into their designated meeting place no fewer than ten minutes before she's meant to be there; even if he arrives early, she won't stand to make him wait on her behalf. She's already grown accustomed to the sight of broken windows and toppled chairs by the time he takes his first steps over the carcass of the entry door, remnants of a place already somber, but not so chillingly haunted as this. The sight should make her sick, she figures. Tragically, it's a far cry from what she'd watched just days ago that caused all of this – a far cry from travesties borne witness to further into the past still.

“Nikolai,” she says, standing at attention in the shadows by what once may have been the reception desk. It's a straight walk from the entry way, but the front of the building is lined with imploded glass that illuminates the front half of the room with uncanny sunlight; as far as hiding places go without being completely oblivious to his arrival, hers is crude, but functional. “You had no difficulty getting here, I assume.”

To be expected of a former Beast. Either he slipped in unnoticed – a feat in itself – or brushed off opposition without sound or scratch. It reminds her of her youth, when she'd thought him untouchable by anything the universe could possibly try to throw at him. With age, she's learned both how wrong and right she had been.

“I've picked an office lock further in. If you'd like to go unheard, I'll lead you there.”


NIKOLAI PETROV

How long has it been? It feels like an eternity since she has last heard his voice or seen his face properly (a year, logic tells her, and barely more than that), and behind a facade of steel, there's a hint of relief. Obviously he had not forgotten her, as part of her had feared he would, seeing as he'd been the one to call this rendezvous together, spurred on by the destruction running rampant around them, no doubt. “It's good to see you, too,” he says, like she'd said it first, or said anything at all; maybe telepathy isn't limited to Pokemon kind after all.

“Clear now, yes, but that may not remain true for long. I've sent my Murkrow to keep surveillance. Any step to keep your location here a secret is one worth taking.” Lorelei won't stand to see him wait. Lorelei won't stand to see him caught. They really ought to have met in a place not crawling with other Rockets – but then, she's never been the one to call the shots, and she would never think to argue.

Still, his comment on privacy is agreement enough. She makes for the office in question, hidden behind a makeshift maze of displaced furniture and zig-zagging walls meant to confuse wayward children in the days when the light bulbs still burned overhead. It's the least obvious of them all – not the first, not the last, and just spacious enough to fit them both and many money, had they need for it.

“Twenty minutes ago,” the woman says first before she's come to a full stop. But maybe he didn't mean here, as in the hospital; maybe he meant: “... The day after. I do not believe they trusted me enough to station me here when it mattered. Credit to my connection to you, no doubt.” Treating her 'well' was a laughable idea by its lonesome; they paid only enough to keep her fed and roomed, and in turn, she did as asked, and only just. All she offers him in response is a curt nod of the head, twisting the knob and and pulling open the door – then she pauses in its threshold, catches his eye, and dares to ask what she's been thinking ever since they sent her to this filth-ridden city.[break][break]

“You were here, weren't you? When the battle took place.”


NIKOLAI PETROV

“The more they isolate you, the safer you are.”

It's always strange to hear him speak that way, honed onto the idea of “what is best” and “where it's safe”; not uncharacteristic by any means, no, but something exclusive only to him. Sometimes, it feels like he thinks she's constructed from glass: ready to bend, break, burn. After so long without him, left alone to her thoughts and her delusions of being hard as iron, sharp as steel, stopped by no man or monster, the notion that she need take any precision to remain “safe” is... jarring. If she had participated in the battle for Slateport, she would have either lived or she would have died. Black, white, crystal clear and cut. Safety hadn't crossed her mind then, and it hardly seems important now when he's stood before her in the eye of his personal storm.

Lorelei steps aside to let him in first, falling into her more appropriate role as his shadow than his guide. Without looking her way, he describes the cut of midnight sirens through the silence of night – stakes that differed from those in times perhaps more simple – and, as he finally turns to look her way, a desire to have done more. He had fought for the League, against his former captors. She tells him simply: “You're alive.” By all means, between the amount of destruction wrought and the vendetta the organization has against him in particular, he shouldn't be. “Next time. You'll do more next time. It will be enough.”

Nikolai reaches out to brush away her hair, and Lorelei jerks in instinct, body wrenching itself no more than a fraction of an inch away at his hand's sudden vicinity, caught between the need for flight and the knowledge that this man, at least, will not harm her. It's more telling than anything she can say. An apology hangs on her tongue, but she hasn't the strength to put it into words.

“... Not so much, these days. I do as I am told. They've stopped finding reasons for fault.” Some had taken longer than others, but everyone comes around eventually, particularly when their target was the scapegoat rather than the target of their ire. The worst had not been their wrath, though – the worst was the space he had left in his departure, the isolation meant to keep her “safe”. She swallows the thought like bile, focusing herself instead on righting a toppled chair and holding it out for him to sit. The room is near pitch with its lack of windows. Eyes can adjust more quickly, however, than a traitor caught in the spotlight. “It's not a cause for concern.”


NIKOLAI PETROV