they'll have you, gladly. [emily, incomplete]

[Owen Page]

Wednesday night at the Page residence was a quiet affair. That being said, most nights at the young Chorister's abode followed such a trend as Owen had few friends in the city to call round for any sort of 'boys night', and little interest furthermore in anything beyond the NBA to watch with such a gathering. In high school, he'd probably have been several cans of beer to the wind, rough-housing with the other guys on the football team. These days, the wildest Owen got was to order pizza and accompany it with copious amounts of soft drink. When Emily called to announce her safe return to the States, it was to the soft background chatter of commentators high-lighting the performance of the Chicago Bulls sounding in the silences between her greeting and whatever [most likely brief and on one side, monosyllabic as ever] conversation they exchanged before she rang off. Now, the dark-haired maintenance worker was reclining on his old, thread-bare sofa with his feet propped up on the coffee table; the remnants of a pizza left in the open box before him; a paperback novel open on his chest. The TV was muted, but Owen's attention was riveted on it none the less. By the time Emily doubtlessly buzzes through downstairs, the Bulls have scored twice and been greeted by enthused clapping of the boy's hands together as if he were on the side-lines, willing them on like a benched team-mate. He gets to his feet, setting his book down [The Bourne Supremacy] and padding to the door to open it when the Orphan eventually knocks. It swings open, and reveals -- Owen. Just as she no doubt recalls him, in his simple gray shirt and dark navy hoodie; in his jeans and worker's boots. He greets her with a small smile, and nod to encourage her to come in, the smell of pizza still fresh in the air.

[Emily Littleton]

It's a warm night, with the temperature lingering in the upper sixties well after the sun had gone down. It made for a nice walk to Owen's, which wasn't that far from Emily's own flat now. She had rang ahead, and perhaps he'd been expecting her to show earlier, but she'd been in no great hurry and took her time memorizing the local streets and looking about her as she traveled. It gave her time to calm her nerves, too. When the door opened, she offered him a smile -- less encumbered by occult things, warmer and a bit more honest -- that broadened somewhat, even as they stood there. There was no malicious resonance clinging to her, now, just the wind-touched curls that framed her face and the lighter weight jacket that had taken the place of her winter coat. It was warm, but still windy in Chicago. There's a small quiet space, and it seems for a moment that she's content just to see him there on the other side of the threshold, before she returns his nod and steps inside. Steps out of her shoes (odd habit [repeated]) and slides the strap of her messenger bag over her head. There's a glance to the table -- pizza, noted -- and the flicker-light of the TV -- game, good choice -- and then back to Owen. "I'm not interrupting...?" she says, her voice more strongly riddled with sounds of home, warmer like her smile, seeking but gentle. She reaches into her bag, withdraws his book and another (a small paperback), and something smaller yet that remains concealed within the palm and curled fingers of her hand.

[Owen Page]

Even over the phone where one cannot fall back into habits such as scrutinizing another's face in silence, or skulking about in the shadows, Owen was not the world's greatest conversationalist, oh sure, he'd asked if she had enjoyed her trip, and if she was jet-lagged, but the hesitation preceding each led one to believe they were pre-programmed things not inherent in him to ask, but prompted either by repeated chiding to do so, or practice. It was a strange thing to consider, practicing how to converse with another human being, but it was most definitely what Emily had been forcing Owen Page to refresh himself with. Even now, standing in the small [comfortable] expanse of his apartment looking at one another there is no rush of physical embrace from the twenty-three year old Singer, there is no perfunctory greeting or use of inane chit-chat that tended to exist, even fleetingly, in most conversations when someone arrived at another's apartment. No how is such and such, no you look wells or it's been a whiles slip from his throat, he just gives her that fleeting, welcoming smile and ushers her inside, closing the door and then looking at her in that manner he has that suggests he's asking and answering all these sort of things with his eyes, anyway and whatever his thoughts on what he finds are not going to be particularly forthcoming. I'm not interrupting…? "Uh, not much," he admits, a hand rising to scruff over his dark head, eyes shifting from her hands to the TV set then back again, that barely-there-but-hinted-at smile working his mouth, he nods at them. "What're those you have there?"

[Emily Littleton]

They had an understanding, these two. Emily allowed him his pregnant silences, while slowly coercing him into small sentences, easing him toward verbal queries. It would be like a game, if she were playing at it. Instead it is a balancing act. They both give, and take, and seek a mutually appropriate center. He does not hurry to hug her, and Emily doesn't initiate such familiarities either. She has the excuse of being (half) mainly British, and Owen has his reasons, she is sure. I'm not interrupting...? Uh, not much. This brings a small smirk, the now-familiar wry twist to one corner of her mouth and an eyebrow lofted (amused) for just a moment. But it's the curious things she carries that pulls his attention away from the television, prompts him toward a complete sentence structure. "Ah, here," she says, offering the two books over to him in a neat stack. Whatever small thing it is that she's concealed remains hidden behind a tucked thumb and in the hand furthest from him. One of the books is Owen's own, loaned to Emily not that long ago. The other is a small novel, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. One has a younger Owen's writing littered throughout its margins, the other has Emily's tight and precise lettering and underscoring scattered among the pages. "I wanted to bring your book back, and loan you one you might like. I read it on the flight," she offered, without elaborating much about it. There's a pause here, as if exchanging library items is quite normal, and a glance to the television (perhaps she cares about the game). Then the quiet starts to seep back in. "You had a good week, then?" she asks. It is asking more than just that. She's concerned, quietly, that whatever had happened between her, Nathan, and the demon at the park might have come back to haunt Owen while she was away. This isn't said, of course, but the worry will be laid to rest once he replies that things were fine. Or he was bored. Or just a yes and tacit dismissal of her concern.

[Owen Page]

It would surprise many, or perhaps, on the other hand surprise none to learn that Owen Page was a veracious reader. Certainly, in his teenage years his athleticism and the act of being on the football team had lent him a certain stereotype that tended to leave most -- including teachers -- amazed at the grades and the quiet intelligence contained in the boy. It had definitely led to more than one accusation of plagiarism by unwilling, or simply incredulous teachers. These days however, the man that Emily has met and is beginning to know, seems to be from all accounts possessing of a taciturn intellect, quiet and plain, but there all the same. His bookshelves, what two he currently owns, are full to the brim and some stacking a-top with various books, so anyone venturing into the young man's abode can glimpse that clearly, the Chorister spent some fair amount of his time either now or at some point in his past, devouring literature. When she hands him back his own well-traveled book, and another unknown one [though the title is recognized, at least] there's an expression of avid curiosity, and undisguised surprise. A gesture of trust that it was, to lend another a book was not a trifling thing, apparently, in his estimation. He accepts both with murmured appreciation and turns The Alchemist over immediately, scanning the blurb on the back of the novel with darting, keen eyes. "I'll tell you what I think," he promises without looking up from his brief perusal of plot, and then when he does it's to answer her questions about his week -- about whether there had been any more activity of a supernatural bent around him -- "Quiet," he assures her, and moves to restore his own book to its place on one of the bookshelves, depositing the loaned one beside his current on the sofa. If he's noticed that she's still holding something [literally] back, he plays it cool, raising his dark brows, hands tucked into pockets. "Coffee? Oh," there's a smile, then. A crooked apparition. "Tea??"

[Owen Page]

[Er, minus one of those question marks. >_0 ]

[Emily Littleton]

All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation. Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there. The quotes on the cover might lead Owen to believe that she had chosen this book to read or to lend because it was of a vein with their conversations, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Having found herself at her gate at O'Hare without a book to help weather the transatlantic flights, Emily had selected something from the Fiction shelf that had a pleasing cover by an author she had not yet read. And this is what she happened upon: a book about finding the courage and faith to pursue the life you were meant to live, to create the positive influences that would lead you toward success, and to learn to listen to the cues and signs hidden throughout the world around you (for they are the voice of the Soul of the World). Cues, perhaps, like a randomly selected book turning an Orphan toward unexpected tears. I learned that the world has a soul, and whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things. It was an odd thing to happen upon, a little like finding Owen in the great Sanctuary one night and thinking, mere weeks later, how it seems as if she'd known him for far, far longer. Her thumb smooths over the something, still concealed in her other hand. "Tea would be lovely," she replies. "Thank you."

[Owen Page]

In truth, he had been expecting her to come calling again, at some point. He hadn't been certain after the way they left things before Easter, the manner she'd reacted at the store, then later the seeming re-connection when he cooked her dinner, right here, there had been understanding there -- but he had deliberately left things open. Left it in her hands to decide what it was she wanted. After all, there was a reason why some Awakened decided to remain Orphans, not every soul was suited to the particular confines of a way of thinking, a form of belief. Some Magi needed the lack of boundaries, the sense of liberty. Owen, however, needed and relied on the merits his Tradition gave him, the foundations it had set beneath him at a time when he'd been so very near to falling into a chasm of his own creation. Emily says yes to tea, though it's still not proper tea, it's the store bought, instant tea-bag and water sort but perhaps its all he can afford on his salary, who knew. The Chorister shrugs off his hoodie on the way to the kitchenette, his gray shirt was short sleeved, and showed off tanned, worker's arms. He sets to making two cups of tea, and when he's finished, or decides that both are strong enough he turns and passes one to her; watchful to see if she sets her hidden bounty down in exchange for the steaming cup. "How do you feel?" He asks, and leans in against the corner of the kitchen benches, where they met at an angle. Trust this man to cut straight to the heart of the matter, but to do it in a vague, general enough manner that his question could literally mean anything. How did she feel after her flight, how did she feel after going home, how did she feel about joining his tradition, any tradition? How did she feel about the Chicago Bulls? The perceptions were endless; and Owen's dark eyes give leave to no clear answer as to what exactly he's referring.

[Emily Littleton]

Ah, so there it is. A question and a challenge. Emily does, indeed, set that guarded thing down on the corner of his counter. It is small enough to sit inside one of the tile squares without touching any of the grout margins. It is nothing more remarkable (or less remarkable) than a pale orange-white rock. Irregular. Worn and crumbed. Indeterminately old. She sets it down so carefully, though. (Reverently) It must be somehow precious, somehow special. It must have a story, or a symbolic purpose. It cannot be a garden variety rock that she's brought to leave on his kitchen counter. Or could it be? How well did he know her? Emily wraps long fingers around the ceramic mug, heedless of how hot it becomes with the near-boiling liquid inside. He leans, she stands with her weight evenly distributed. Still wearing her coat but now in stocking feet. They are an odd pair, these dark-haired, blue-eyed two. "Better," she answers. It is equally vague and open-ended, but it is an honest answer. Her smile widens, warms, it is a genuine and lovely thing, and just as it eclipses the warmth he's seen in her before Emily hides that expression from him with her mug, sips at her tea carefully, casts her eyes down to watch the liquid so that it might not spill, might not scorch. "I'm feeling better, thank you," she says, looking up now to meet his eyes -- if they're there to catch. The Orphan is different, somehow. Better, yes. Less tentative and tormented. She's found her footing (she is found). Owen was perceptive enough to notice, even if he may not quite understand just yet.

[Owen Page]

Better, she answers with a smile that's half-hidden behind her mug, an old purple and white affair that was missing a little chink around near the handle. Owen only appeared to own two mugs total, and he was holding the other one, a plain black version of the one Emily held. He watches her smile, her warmth, radiating outward toward him in a degree that he has not quite felt before, and as if some great creature had been slumbering in his chest and now just deigned to stir, there was a reciprocating warmth beginning deep within him in response. He may not have quite understood yet, but he understood that he was being presented with a change within the woman across from him, sipping tea and that change, however tiny, however infinitesimal in the scope of the Universe is cause enough for him to rejoice, privately, without any outward display of changeable emotion but the softer edges to the smile he gives when he speaks again, quirking a brow at the little rock. "And this? Did you bring a piece of home back?" He doesn't take the little stone in his hands, but he looks at it; some vague inkling driving a furrow into his brow, an expression Emily was growing to know well as their acquaintance progressed. It was the Chorister's ruminating expression, his distraction of insular thought.

[Emily Littleton]

There's a fondness in her expression as she regards the small rock on his counter. Almost as if it were a friend, but certainly as if it housed some precious memory. There is no doubt, now, that it is a momento, a trinket more weighty that its corporeal form. "I brought it for you," she says, simply, as if it is the most reasonable thing in the world. To bring him a rock. From the other side of the world. No, there has to be more to it. Emily looks up from the rock, to Owen -- Owen who has not yet picked it up, or done more than nudge it with his weighty stare. "You shared your drawings with me and it seems only fair that I should return, somehow, the favor." This is said shyly, because she cannot simply hand it to him and expect him to understand. Because Emily gives of herself more completely, gives more away, more readily. It cannot be helped, and now this is begun so she continues. "It's from Holyrood Abbey, in Edinburgh." She paused, her gaze shifted to something farther off (remembering) rather than focusing on an item in the room. There was a faint smile, ghosted now, to that expression. "I'd almost been too ill to go, but my god-father and -brother waited until Yule so I could go with them." She sipped at her tea again, drawing the story out but not filling it with too many unnecessary words. "It's an old, crumbling 12th century Abbey." Now she is not far away, or lost in something distantly remembered. Emily looks to Owen and says plainly, without obfuscation: "It is the first place I heard the Song." And she knows, undoubtedly, what she is implying.

[Owen Page]

I bought it for you, she says and suddenly something changes in Owen's perusal of the stone, the frown lines in his brow fade away and he simply looks at the little segment, the tiny piece of a forgotten time and a forgotten age writ into worn down rock and sand. His untouched tea is carefully placed to one side and he takes the weight of the tiny piece of Holyrood Abbey in his palm and smooths the pad of a thumb over it gently; reverently. When Emily's story completes itself naturally, unraveling at the pace she sets for it, only then does the boy's head lift and his midnight blue eyes settle on her face; probing it, scouring it for the simple revelation that her offering had sought to assure him. Yes, it says, yes I choose this. Yes, I am Home. Yes, I'm sure. So he doesn't ask the natural thing. He doesn't ask her if she's sure about what she's telling him, about the decision she's implying by setting that little piece of her own history, her own life on his counter. He just searches her expression and then, straightening, folds his palms over the rock. "I wish," he says softly, looking down at his folded hand, feeling the stone absorbing his palm's heat. "That I could have been there." He's smiling a little when he looks back at her this time, there's something almost wry about the way he says this next pronouncement, as if he had known all along, as if he'd been waiting for her, all this time. "Welcome back."

[Emily Littleton]

While she was away, Emily weathered many such wordless inquisitions. Owen's gaze pushes, prods, probes at her newfound surety. The warmth endures, unabated, and she waits it out with a quiet sense of grace. No ruffled edges, no irritation brewing around her margins. Her temperment is gentler, somehow, but Emily had never been too perturbed by Owen's seeking-without-asking. He doesn't ask, so she cannot answer; it's likely that they mistake each other's meanings, here, in this careful moment. With his thumbs smoothing over the fine-grained stone and her fingers finally moving, resettling in new places on the ceramic mug. I wish, he says, [/i]That I could have been there.[/i] "You could always go," she says, simply, plainly, as if there were no great magic to crossing the Atlantic, nothing insurmountable about finding his way down the Royal Mile. "It stands, still." (And still, somewhere, she is the child who breathed in Winter and breathed out Wonder.) He has known, all along. He has been waiting for her (perhaps longer than he knows). These two are sentiments she sees echoed in him, mirrored, from someone far away. Someone who speaks to Home more clearly than any other in Emily's life, now. There is an oddly soft (familiar) smile, shifting towards wry, faintly confused and concilliatory. "Thank you," she says, each word carefully ennunciated. Weighty. Almost as if they were talking about more than her return trip to the Windy City.

[Owen Page]

The stone is carefully deposited on the window ledge, it sits there alone, without any other decorative objects to surround or overwhelm it. Owen studies it for a moment as if not quite sure he likes the position or not before he turns back, re-claiming his tea and inviting Emily with a quick jerk of his head toward the moderately more comfortable surroundings of the sofas and the flashing, muted TV set where the game is still playing itself out. She says thank you in a way that gives Owen pause, at least pause enough that he looks at her again, more intently perhaps than even before. "When you say you feel better," he leads in, framing his big palms around the cooling ceramic mug and leaning forward, elbows braced on knees, his shirt pulling against the shape of his lean frame beneath it. "Have you made a decision, about the Chorus?" He doesn't rush this out, but says it hesitantly, a tinge of uncertainty tasted in his throat, in the shape of the words as they escape his lips.

[Emily Littleton]

She follows, quietly, on the balls of her feet, tea carried carefully and not sloshing too much in her mug. Owen sits; Emily stands. She has been standing since she arrived, and not the casual standing about that turns to leaning against a counter or crossing one's feet at the ankles -- no, the taut and somewhat ready standing about of a schoolchild at recitation or an adult who has stilled herself just enough to keep from pacing. There's a calmness to the Orphan, which Owen has picked up on, but it does not full extend to her body language or habits. She is nervous. She has been waiting, on this very question, has practiced the answer a hundred times, and now her tongue feels numb and lazy in her mouth. Now she draws a little breath and looks meaningfully at the floor boards. It's a pause that they can both feel, in the passing of heartbeats, in their pulse thudding at their temples, see in the irregular pulse of light coming from the game on the television. She swallows, squares her shoulders slightly, and looks up to him. Lets her gaze, dark and steady, fall in line with his. "Yes," Emily says, resolutely. Then, more hesitantly, almost worried, "If they will have me." And that is a very real worry. The Orphan (for now [but not necessarily always]), worries her fingers against the ceramic mug. Tucks the toes of one foot in, shyly. Begins to chew on the inside edge of her lower lip. For having said this aloud gives him opportunity to reject her, and Emily had not considered until this very moment how vulnerable and horrible it might feel... to find Home again, and to be turned away.

[Owen Page]

[WP: Don't look all moved and stuff, man. That's not manly.]

[Owen Page]

Emily is nervous. She doesn't sit, which makes Owen lean back after a minute with brows drawn as if bemused by her anxiety, by her desire to say whatever it is she's about to on her feet as if she were concerned that she'd a rapid pathway to the door and safety in the wake of them. The Initiate seated before her leans over to set his teacup down as Emily is taking a little breath, half poised to get to his feet; he freezes when she starts to speak and drops back down, settling for looking solemnly across the coffee table at her as if it were some wide, gaping abyss between them. Yes, if they will have me. The reaction does not happen instantaneously, Owen does not leap into the air and whoop for joy, or scowl menacingly at her or laugh mockingly in her face for ever thinking that his tradition would tolerate an Orphan among them -- though she could not have ever dreamed the latter would be his response, no matter what his thoughts truly were on her decision, one way or another. Rather, there's a tense few minutes when nothing louder than the clock hung on the walls ticks and then the Chorister drops his eyes away from hers, scrubs his hands over his face with a low breath exhaled from his lips and pushes himself to his feet with an enviable degree of ease. She's chewing her lip, uncertain what is to come. Owen steps close to her, and looks down at her face; clear into her eyes. When he speaks, its softly, and genuinely: "They'll have you, alright." He breaks, a smile twitches a corner of his mouth. "Gladly."

[Emily Littleton]

Owen does not answer immediately. Owen is not easy to read. Owen keeps his thoughts to himself. Owen does not react with a whoop or a cry or chastizement or -- it's everything Emily can do to weather the quiet waiting without beginning to fidget. It is possible that he's noticed how close she is to holding her breath when he steps forward, steps closer (her shoulders pull a little tighter, her posture just a little straighter, her expression just a bit more guarded)... ... and answers. There is open relief in Emily's expression, and it radiates from her like a tremulous, thin shockwave. He is not touching her, but he can feel the weight of it from just the look in her eyes. From the way it takes a moment for her to echo his smile, as if she didn't quite yet believe him. There are no words from the Orphan, not yet, and that might worry him.