It is Tue May 31 2005. Currently in Saint Claire, it is raining lightly. The temperature is 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.04 and rising, and the relative humidity is 88 percent. The dewpoint is 52 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius.) Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (43% full). Safehouse: Common Area The foyer of this house is set off from the living room with its octagonal bump-out by a four foot high halfwall. Stairs lead up from the foyer, turning and disappearing to the right, and a wooden door with a keycard lock claims the wall opposite the living room. The rest of the main floor is taken up by a small bathroom across the hallway from a dining room which is separated from the kitchen at the back of the house by another half-wall. The decor is decidedly sparse - white walls, beige carpeting in the living and dining rooms and down the hall, unremarkable vinyl in the foyer and kitchen. A used couch and a pair of recliners are grouped around a coffee table in the living room, with a foursome of wooden chairs claiming the bump out for quieter conversation. The dining room boasts a white laminate table with four aluminum and vinyl-upholstered chairs - too new to be 'vintage', too old to be trendy. The appliances and cupboards in the kitchen are new - or at least refurbished to look like it - and a door leads out to the backyard from there. Up the stairs are a number of empty rooms where anyone affiliated with the Sept can crash and an office for private meetings. The Glass Walkers have their own area accessible via a locked door off the foyer. The main doors themselves lead back out to the front porch of the house. Natalie and Jeren are back in the kitchen, though the Elder is the only one readily visible from the front of the house. "Damn. Every cub's terrified that their Rite's going to be fatal... except, maybe, the cubs who /need/ to be worried about it." She looks over at the lone bagle, then grunts and goes to retrieve it. "You want this? I'm not hungry any more." You paged Natalie with 'What time is it IC?'. Natalie pages: Roughly... three-ish? Early afternoon, I think. I don't 'member no more. Outside, Grey's car pulls up and parks, giving those inside a short warning before he arrives. Jeren shakes her head at the offer. "I'm not hungry either." She rubs her hand over her face, looking somewhat warily toward the door as the rather familiar sound of Grey's car reaches her ears. Natalie, oblivious to her surroundings as always, shrugs and tosses the bagle back into the fridge before heading back down the hallway. "I need a damn dayplanner to keep track of all the crap. I've got Grey, plus I need to keep an eye on you. There's the cubs, and Lord only knows what the hell's up with Jeremy. As usual. Then there's Rina, also known as 'Doesn't Talk to Me'. About the only person who /doesn't/ give me angst is Tu, and that's only because I rarely see him." The front door opens as Natalie is finishing her speech, letting in a weary -- when is he not? -- Grey in slacks and shirt and tie. He loosens the tie, but only slightly, and slams the door closed behind him. Jeren's reply is predictably sullen. "You don't need to keep an eye on me. I'm not about to do something--" she sounds about to say stupid, but thinks better of it. And then Grey enters, and the Ragabash makes a clearly conscious effort to be quiet and unnoticeable. Nevermind that she hasn't bothered to change out of her bloodstained shirt, ahem. "I'm your Elder," Natalie retorts, turning her head over her shoulder to send a glare Jeren's way. "Damn /straight/ I have to... what?" She blinks at the Ragabash, then turns to find Grey there in the foyer; breathes a near-silent, "Hah," as she takes a trio of quick steps toward the man. "Thomas. I wanted to talk to you about last night. Is now good?" Grey was, naturally, on his way through to the Glass Walker side of the house, but this stops him. Tense, he turns toward them, keys jingling as he slips them back into his pocket. "Now's... fine." His gaze shifts past Natalie toward Jeren. He grimaces, then studies the floor. Jeren is pointedly avoiding looking at either of her Tribemates just now. She hunches up against the wall, choosing instead to study the floor tile. "I've heard from Kevin, and Jeren," Natalie begins... and stops. A glance toward Jeren herself and she offers, "Want to take this up to the office, Thomas?" It seems impossible that a six-foot-plus adult male, the kind of man who typically makes babies, small children, and adorable old grammas cry, the kind of man who can turn other men to jelly with a single scowl, that such a man could, for a moment at least, look like an eight-year-old right after being called up to see the principal. But it's just such a look that flickers across Grey's face before vanishing under a guarded, neutral mask. "That's probably not necessary," he says slowly, and then looks past Natalie at the cowering Ragabash. "Jeren?" Jeren grunts. "It's up to you two. I can get lost if you'd rather stay down here." And escape to her room again, hah. "Or I can stick around. I don't care." Finally, she does venture a careful, probing look toward Grey--and not seeing anything beyond his guarded expression seems to ease her a little. Grey clears his throat. "Actually," he says, "I wanted to apologize." Natalie looks between the two of them, her thumbs slinking toward their usual beltloop hangouts, but keeps silent. Jeren's eyebrows jump. "--Forget it," she mumbles immediately. "Forgiven. Forgotten." As if to add to this, she waves one hand. "It happens." Grey grimaces. "It shouldn't have. I was--" He pauses, glancing at Natalie, then looking back to Jeren. His hands come out of his pockets and clasps together behind his back. "I was out of line." "Thomas," Natalie says sharply, "Drop it. You never shifted out of homid; they were fixed in less time than it takes to eat a bowl of cereal. You apologized, she forgave you." Grey's gaze flicks back to Natalie and then drops back to the floor. Chastised. Jeren fidgets, though Natalie's interjection seems to stifle whatever she might have said in reply. Natalie purses her lips at her tribemates, then jerks her head toward the stairs. "Jeren, go see if you can talk to Kev, will you? Don't say anything about his choice of tribe, but maybe see if you can obsess about Brom at him a little." That done, she heads for the steps, trusting that Grey will follow at her heels. Grey unclasps his hands and, indeed, follows after Natalie like an obedient (and possibly neutered) Doberman. Safehouse: Office The office takes up the entire octagonal turret on the second floor. The windows on each of the outer walls claim what would be a spectacular view, save that each of the panes has been etched with delicate Victorian traceries and an urn of flowers that lets in light but little else. The walls are painted a pale spring green, while the cream carpet underneath muffles footsteps. A massive mahogany desk faces the door, its heaviness out of place in this pale room, two equally ponderous chairs set before it. A reproduction of Van Gogh's _Starry Night_ hangs on the wall immediately to the right of the door, so that it is the first thing seen on entering the room. The only door leads back to the hall and from there downstairs to the public safehouse. Natalie leads Grey into an eerily familiar room - the furnishings, if not the decor - and takes one of the chairs in front of the desk for herself. "Shift," she offers, "If you want to. Or not. And I'm not mad at you. I just want to know... what the hell happened? Kevin says he didn't do it, Jeren says she didn't. Jeremy hasn't been around the house for ages, which leaves you, me, Cy, and Tu. --And Rina," she adds after a reluctant moment. Grey takes in the familiar desk -- still with scratch marks from when he threw it at Renee -- with a subtle tightening of his jaw, then turns to the Galliard. He remains standing, and -- unconsciously, perhaps -- clasps his hands behind his back again, stiff and formal. "I don't know. I came home yesterday and... found it, when I went upstairs. I simply assumed..." He shrugs. "Cubs are prone to bad jokes. Especially Ragabash ones." "How would he find out?" she wonders. "--And I've told both of them to keep quiet about what was written there. Jeremy asked, but it's none of his business. --Not /my/ business to tell him, anyway." Grey shakes his head. "I wasn't thinking," he says, more to the floor than to the Elder. "I simply... reacted. But, no, he didn't do it. He wasn't lying." A beat. "How, ah... how is he?" Natalie says "He's... fine." Not -precisely- a lie, perhaps. She continues before he can do more than look up, "I've been wondering, Thomas. Do you... sleepwalk?" Grey's brow furrows, his eyes flicking up to hers. "What? No." Natalie's already looking at him, greenish eyes studying what little she can see of his face. "Then I don't know who else could... -would- know. About... that. What you said in the basement. Did you tell anyone else?" Grey's hands tighten behind his back; his body language turns rigid. "No. But 'dog' has been used as an insult to Garou since the first time some cur curled up at a fire. I don't think this has /anything/ to do with... that other conversation." Natalie considers him for a moment, then nods. "If you're positive. Do you want me to keep looking into it? And what color do you want your room repainted? Does it need repainting?" "The stain's almost out," he answers stiffly. "And I think this whole thing should be best forgotten. Perhaps the Gift failed me and Kevin /did/ do it. Or Jeren." He shrugs faintly, his body still tight. "I'd rather just forget it." "--If that's what you want," she replies doubtfully. "I mean it, about the repainting, though." Grey grunts. "If the stain won't come out, I suppose. I'm planning to attack it again tonight, when I'm off work." Natalie studies him through his grunt, and explanation, then pushes herself to her feet in order to go stare out the window overlooking the neighbor's yard. "Killz. Everything upstairs is in an eggshell; it doesn't scrub well. Use Killz to prime over it." Grey looks up to follow her progress with an eye. "You're the expert," he says neutrally. Natalie continues to frown down at the yard, though she can't see much through the vinyl on the windows. "If it doesn't come off easily - and do you have any idea what was used? - we'll have to prime and repaint. Though the priming might not be necessary, depending on what they did use. Someone said they thought it was blood?" "Smelled like it," Grey says, shortly. Natalie lifts a hand to rest it on the casement, her fingers drumming lightly against the wood. "Water and Simple Green, then. But if that doesn't work, prime. I can do it tomorrow, if you want me to." Grey shifts his weight slightly and nods. "Is there anything else?" "I don't know," she tells the window, leaning forward slightly to rest her forehead against the glass. "It seems like I'm never told about problems until well after they're to damn big to deal with, or else already fixed." Grey clearly isn't certain how to answer this. "...I'm sorry," he says at last. Natalie nods after a moment, after a fashion. "I need a Beta. I -need- a Beta. That's... make sure Rina knows she's invited out to the woods, will you? All of us. I want us all there." "I'll call her," says the disgraced ex-Fostern, making no answer at all to her expressed desire for a second-in-command. Natalie says "Thank you." Another hesitation, another new topic. "I know what Kevin needs to do for his Rite. I just don't know if he's ready." Grey's frown deepens. He shifts his weight again subtly. "Is there any reason why he wouldn't be?" "He runs from... conflict," she tells the window, her other hand lifting to rest on the opposite side of the frame. "I don't know. I just don't know." "Have the Rite test him for that, then," Grey suggests. "Make him... /not/ run away from conflict in order to succeed." Natalie straightens off the window, though her hands remain on the frame. "Set him up to fail, you mean?" she asks lightly. "No. That's a crappy way to... no. I won't play those sort of mind games with him. With any of you." Grey opens his mouth, then closes it and shrugs instead. "I don't know, then." He's closing himself off -- though he wasn't all that open to begin with, this afternoon. He gives a quick, sidelong glance at the clock. "I know what I want to have him do," she repeats, giving the neighbor's yard one last looking over before turning. Her eyes are weary, almost bleak, but he doesn't get a good look at them before she's moving for the door. "Leave a note on my door before ten if you can't find me and you can't get the stain out." Grey, for his part, looks both uncomfortable and guilty underneath the layer of tension, stress, and general guardedness. "...Are /you/ sleeping all right, Natalie?" Natalie pauses with her hand on the door knob. "I'm sleeping -alone-. I'm twenty-two years old, a Galliard, and in a Wolverine pack. I'm lucky to have survived this long. At least two of my Cliath have serious mental issues, same with two of my kin. I have a mortgage that's more than six times what I make in a year looming over my head, I can't Challenge for Fostern worth beans, and the only other Fostern I -could- Challenge once Layne fails to get hold of me thinks I want to be Fostern because I'm a selfish bitch. So... yeah. I'm sleeping all right, thanks." Grey's face does that tightening little twitch at 'mental issues', and he bites down rather than interrupt the stream of words with a protest. He takes a beat to recover his composure and make his voice calm and even. "What do you want me to do." Natalie's only answer is a small, barely noticable shake of her head. "Nothing. Everything. I want you to be better. Healthy. I want the moon, the sun, and the stars on a silver platter." She pauses for a second, head tilting, and then continues, her voice forced into a semblance of neutrality, "I want you to be yourself again. I want you to be the bastard you were a year ago, before you left." A short non-amused laugh. "And just to round it all off, might as well want world peace, too." Grey's shoulders lift, hunching slightly; he stares at the floor as though his eyes were too heavy to lift, and despite his human shape, his posture suggests flattened ears. He says nothing. Natalie probably couldn't interpret his posture even were she looking at it; as it is, she lets the silence drag out for nearly a minute. "I'm a stubborn bitch, Thomas Jack Salem Grey," she finally says, tone patently light and false. "As I believe I've mentioned. And I may be no Theurge, but I damn well -will- make you... help you. Because I owe you. Because I want to. Because you deserve it." Grey remains silent and, along with everything else, looks distinctly and noticeably uncomfortable. He shifts his weight again, hands clenching behind his back, and looks anywhere /but/ at the Galliard. Again the silence lingers, again Natalie lets it. This time she breaks it after glancing back at him. "No protestations? Good. I've out-stubborned you on that, at least. I need to go make a couple of phone calls." "...And I have to get back to work," Grey murmurs, still avoiding looking at her. "Going to be late tonight. We're short-staffed." Natalie pulls the door leading to the empty hall. "Short staffed? Thought that didn't happen in repo. What did some of your guys get shot, or something?" Grey shakes his head. "Food poisoning or some such. Hospital stays. One of our men is still recovering... He's been out for over a week." He grimaces. Natalie curls her lip sympathetically. "Oh, yuck. Well, is there anything you need me to do? Anything I -can- do? I don't have any work lined up until Friday, though there's always the possibility of getting called in." Grey shakes his head. "Helps keep my mind off things." Natalie says "Then I'll let you get back to it," as she steps aside to let him leave. "Roach watch over you, huh?" Grey unclasps his hands as he leaves the office. "...And you, Natalie." He ducks his head to her, then heads downstairs to grab a sandwich from the kitchen before heading back off to the repo grind.