Date: 08/27/2002, Tuesday afternoon.

Harbor Park -- The Meadow

One of the last bastions of green left in the city, mottled and withered
grass and weeds covers the earth like a badly stained carpet, with the
construction work turning what is left into just bare dirt. The vegetation
seems marginally healthier the further it is from the river and much
healthier towards the central area of the park around the fountain.
Construction work is ongoing here: a raised earthen berm about five feet
tall is being built all around the park perimeter, with two breaks each at
the Bridge Street entrance and the First Street end. Wooden posts are
being erected at regular intervals all along the earthen wall, while
tasteful iron gates and fences are being added at the entrances.
Overpowering the scent of living vegetation are the exhaust fumes from a
busy street to the west and an unpleasant stench from the Columbia River
to the east. From the street view or river view, the park is now isolated,
as if it existed apart from the city. People in tall buildings have an
excellent view of any goings-ons for now, though. In the center of the
park, a small glade of six tall trees and a flower bed surrounds the
fountain.

The murky waters of the Columbia River flow swiftly along the east side of
the park. Bracketing the park to the west is First Street and the city of
St. Claire.


Salem moves through the park at an aimless, restless prowl, hands buried
in the pockets of his jeans, no jacket and no sunglasses. His face is
drawn into a pensive expression, looking at the meadow but not quite
seeing it, or at least not caring much.

Rina sits crosslegged in the meadow, alone in the open, sketchbook on her
lap. She appears to be working on a drawing of a young derelict, asleep on
a park bench.

A certain Walker kinfolk of the Italian variety is definitely a sight that
would pluck at the attention of a certain Walker Philodox. Salem stops
dead in his tracks and hesitates, indecisive.

She looks from her sketch to the subject, and back again, her gaze intent.
He could be coming up on her with a knife, and she would have absolutely
no idea. The wind ruffles her hair a little, and she shakes it out of her
eyes with a characteristic gesture.

Salem closes his eyes briefly, waging a brief internal debate. Then he
inhales a breath, lets it out, and heads in her direction, the mask of his
face carefully composed into something polite and noncommittal.

The alarms go off when he is perhaps a yard or two away, the steps in the
grass getting her attention. She looks over her shoulder, then, her face
all sharp alert eyes and livid bruise. The tension relaxes after a moment,
as she recognizes him.

Salem hesitates when she turns, when their eyes meet. Then he continues
forward, jerking his chin in a short, curt little nod of greeting. Though
he looks a good deal better than when he visited Saturday night, there are
still dark circles under his eyes, and his expression is unreadable.

Rina's smile is small, and less than certain. But she, too looks better
than before, as if she's had a little rest. There's something in those
eyes that is difficult to read--worry, or sympathy, maybe? Something.
"Hey, Jack," she says quietly. "Pull up some grass." One hand touches the
ground beside her, as she looks back toward the river. There is a smudge
of charcoal across the back of her wrist and hand, and paint lingers
around her fingernails.

Salem hesitates again, then takes the offered seat. He lowers himself to
the ground with complete dignity and sits crosslegged next to the
kinswoman. "How's the painting coming?" he asks quietly.

Rina glances down, frowning at her sketch. "It's all right. Worked on it a
lot this weekend, while he was gone. It's close. Real close." She chews on
her lower lip, contemplating a moment; then she closes the pad, puts it
aside on the ground, and sets the pencil on top of it. Her attntion turns
to him. "What happened?"

Salem, for whatever reason, sat down with his scarred side, his blind
side, toward her. At the question, he turns his head slightly toward her,
though not enough to be able to _look_ at her. "...What do you mean?"
Guarded.

All the better; the sharp eyes can watch him, without being watched in
turn. She studies the nuances of his expression, the cracks in the mask.
"You, and John." Her voice is quiet, sober.

Salem grunts and looks down. His elbows rest on his knees, and he studies
his folded hands, examining clean, trimmed fingernails. His hands aren't
as calloused as a human's would be; chalk one more up to the Garou's
regenerative abilities. "We talked." His voice is flat.

"Really." Her own carries exactly the same lack of inflection. She tips
her head a little, eyes narrowing as she watches him. "You in any kind of
trouble?"

Salem goes still for a moment, then grimaces faintly and straightens up,
one hand coming up to rub at his scars around his left eye. Reluctantly,
he says, "You... could say that."

Rina wets her lips, and rolls onto one leg to get a better look at him.
"Aright," she says firmly. "Spill."

Salem's mouth takes on a bitter little twist at the kin's choice of
vocabulary. Or maybe it's her tone of voice. He turns his face toward her
again, this time enough so that he can see her. The drawbridge is raised,
the portcullis lowered, force shields up. "What did he tell you?"

The black eyes--touched with amber in the sun--narrow a little, and the
brief glimpse of gold disappears. "I told him he oughta talk t'you. Make
things right." There's something hesitant in the way she says it; a
darkness, a concern for the man before her. "He said you had your own
problems to take care of."

Salem holds her gaze for a moment or two longer and then looks away,
falling back to an examination of his hands. He makes a vague 'mmnh' type
of sound, and seems reluctant to expound on things further.

Rina's brow furrows, and a tightness crosses her features. "Look, if
there's somethin' goin' on, I'm /gonna/ find out about it, and I'm /gonna/
help." She sets both hands on her knees, and regards him steadily. "So we
might as well do this now."

Salem makes a small growling sound in the back of his throat, then
squeezes his eyes shut and pinches at the bridge of his nose. "It's over,
Rina," he says in a low voice, keeping his inflection bland. "Done with. I
got... distracted, this weekend. That's all. End of story."

A breath, and then a small hand touches the back of his, trying to tug it
away from his eyes. "What's that s'posed to mean, distracted? What, hired
a goumar' for a night? Did some ecstasy? Come on..."

Salem tenses at the contact, but lets her pull his hand down. He even lets
her keep holding it, if she wants; at least, he doesn't tug it away
immediately. "I got drunk," he says. A sharp, brittle tone enters his
voice, and it gets more razory as he continues. "That's all. I went to a
bar, had a few drinks, and the next thing I clearly remember is waking up
in that fucking bunker with the bastard standing over me like the fucking
hand of God."

Rina winces. She does end up holding his hand lightly, her own under it
and only curving around it a little. Making it easy for him to draw away.
She glances down to it, and blinks. "Shit." A swallow tightens her throat,
and then she says, softly, "I'm sorry."

Salem inhales a deep breath. Is there a slight catch in it, at the end?
It's hard to say. He reasserts some of that infamous, rigid self-control
and draws his hand away. He folds his arms across his chest and says, more
evenly now -- if a bit hollow -- "Why? It's not your fault. This was
coming."

"If I hadn't walked in? If you hadn't-- if none of that happened, you
woulda still gotten hammered this weekend?" She doesn't sound convinced.

Salem tenses and then, abruptly, leans forward and pushes himself to his
feet in one quick movement. A minor stumble, the briefest stutter in his
balance, draws a muttered Serbian word from him, and then he's upright,
brushing off his jeans. "That was just a catalyst."

Rina ducks her head, wincing. "Don't go," she says quietly. "If I said
somethin' wrong I'm sorry, aright?"

Salem hasn't taken a single step away yet, but his back's partially turned
toward her, and his face is turned away almost completely, long black hair
hiding what angles do not. He folds his arms across his chest. "Stop
apologizing," he says flatly. "This isn't your fault. It has nothing to do
with you."

Rina presses her lips together, hard. "Fine," she says shortly. "Then tell
me what I can do." She stands with a creaking of leather, and dusts off
her thighs.

Salem turns to look back at her, frowning slightly. "Do?"

Rina crosses her arms. "To help." Her eyes are dark, haunted. "'Cause I'm
not gonna watch you go all to hell."

Salem grimaces again, his jaw clenching as he looks away, toward the
river. That damned, polluted, sluggish python of water. "There isn't
anything you can do," he says, in that same flatline tone of voice. "I'm
fine. I'll live. As John so very forcefully reminded me, I have a duty."

Rina swallows, and takes a small, abortive step toward him. "You-- if--"
Her brow furrows, and her expression darkens. "I'll be around. If you
wanna pretend I'm not, if that's better f'you... whatever." Like most
theater types, she doesn't take well to being ignored.

And Salem is the kind of man who would rather starve to death than ask for
a meal. His arms remain folded across his chest, and there's a tightness
to the set of his shoulders as he continues to stare toward the river.
"Fine," he says blandly.

Confused, she gathers up her things, pulling on the gun-laden jacket and
tucking the sketchbook close to her chest. "Tell me somethin'?" she asks
softly.

Salem half-turns his face back toward her, though not enough to look at
her. "Mm?"

She stares at the ground. "What'd I do?" A swallow tightens her throat.
"Did I fuck up somewhere? Say the wrong thing?"

Salem shakes his head rather sharply. "No," he says, with some force. And
then, more quietly, "No. You didn't do anything wrong."

Rina wraps both arms around herself. "Can I-- come by, sometime, maybe?"
Her voice is quiet, a little less touched.

Salem hesitates, then nods. "Cat needs to meet some more people," he says,
low, without much inflection.

Rina's brow furrows, and she looks over her shoulder to him. "You have a
cat?" Nonplussed, to say the least.

Salem exhales a short, sharp breath. It could be interpreted as a chuckle,
but there's no humor in it. "No. New cub. Theurge. John's met him."

"Oh." She hugs the book to her chest. "Yeah, I'd... like t'meet him
sometime."

Salem nods again, lightly. "He's... he's a good kid." He still hasn't
looked at her.

Rina wraps one arm around the book, and draws the back of the other across
her eyes. "You-- I mean, y'not gonna slip again... are you?"

The muscles in Salem's jaw and neck tighten at the question. "I'll be
fine."

Rina nods minutely, ducking her head, covering her eyes with one hand.
"Aright," she whispers.

Salem inhales a breath and then lets it out, and then another. Careful.
Controlled. Everything _controlled_. "I have to go. The moot's tonight,
and I have some errands I have to run beforehand."

"Yeah." She whispers, her voice too hoarse to trust. "Be careful." Her
head remains bowed, hiding her eyes behind the fall of dark, unkempt hair.

"I will." He hesitates, then finally turns to look at her, pensive
underneath that guarded mask. "Be... be seeing you."

Rina lifts her head to look out over the river. Her eyes, narrowed, have a
shimmer of wetness that betrays her tears. They don't affect her voice.
"Yeah."

Salem hesitates another moment, then inclines his head with complete
courtesy and turns to walk away, heading across the meadow toward First
Street, long strides carrying him away from the kinswoman.

She closes her eyes, and stands motionless for a long time. The tears
glint in the sun, where there is no one to see.