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[ The specter -- definitely not July's -- is impossible to miss. ]

[ One glance at the Network feed is enough to determine her location. Unexpectedly, Hei feels a jolt in his chest, excitement flaring in a rush that makes it hard to breathe. It doesn't even cross his mind that this might be a trap. Or, if it does, he disregards it immediately. Yin is back. That's more important than anything. ]

[ It doesn't take long to reach her location. One moment he spots her in the distance, the next he's sailing forward, and Yin is right there in front of him, ten feet away, then five, and then he's grabbed her into a hug that astonishes even him. He's not sure he's ever embraced her like this -- or anyone. Always before there was that cold layer of reserve that made even his most emotional moments ever-so-detached. Yet here he is now, hugging her, tight, motionless, and for a long time -- long enough for the rest of his mind to catch up a little, to realize -- ]

[ Shit. Probably suffocating her just a bit. ]

[There wasn't any change to her feelings when Yin saw him through her specter's eyes, but when Hei approached, Yin felt something swell against the muted section of her being referred to as emotions. He came to her. He didn't covertly arrange a meeting place, but instead seemed to have lost all care for what might happen if people noticed.]

[What about his cover?]

[When he hugged her full force, she felt a pang, deep and sweet, echo through that empty space of emotions.]

[Slowly, her arms rose to embrace him in kind, any suffocation unnoticed. Even without being a Doll, she no longer needed to breathe, and a small bit of pressure brought no remark from her. Yin's only reaction was to hold onto Hei, eyes closed, allowing her world to consist only of him for a time.]

[ Self-preservation -- for his cover, for himself -- is a habit Hei usually has no idea how to break. But it's surreal how little that matters in the City, in the face of Yin being snatched away and returned like it's nothing. Anger, relief, pleasure, reluctance, confusion, all pop up like a stupid game of whack-a-moles as she passes her arms around him. But he doesn't try to examine any of the feelings too closely. ]

[ It's enough that being around her makes him capable of feeling at all. ]

Don't -- [ Not a croak. Not a whisper. His tone is even and controlled as always. But there's an edge to it that's almost threatening, if only because Hei has no idea how to beg. He's can't react to vulnerability except with barbs and shields. ] Don't leave me like that again.

[ Such an irrational demand. She didn't leave by choice. The City took her away. But it's another sign -- among the many -- of how out-of-balance Hei's restraint is just now. The implication unsettles him, enough that he loosens his hold on her. Drawing back, he frames her face in his palms, then clasps her shoulders, arms and hands, doing the head-to-toe inspection as he tries to get his bearings back. His gaze is dark and shuttered, but it's not without emotion. He looks like he's not sure whether to hug her again or interrogate her. ]

[ Eventually, ] Let's get you indoors.

[The lack of his usual habit is obvious enough Yin notes it. Her own emotions crackle and explode briefly, like firecrackers and lightning against a darkened sky.]

[Her arms, as he speaks, ever so softly, tighten against him. The idea of being left alone. Her eyes widen. To hear it from him, her own words remixed, Yin can only shake her head.]

[It speaks volumes to her, Hei's state of being. She has to give some sort of response to that.]

I won't by choice. [Besides, there's no where else for her to go, she knows now. As he looks her over, she inspects him as well, searching for signs of fatigue. A month. It was a long time to be parted from each other, and apparently a month can do a lot. She felt everyday slip away from her while she floated in nothingness. No longer anything but part of a void.]

[What was it like to still be a person for a month, while the sun set and people moved around you and you floated? Was it like that for Hei? Or would it only be that way for Yin if he left?]

[ Intellectually, Hei's aware of where City Dead go after vanishing. A sort of limbo -- an aether between the City and their own homeworlds. He'd press Yin for details, except right now he's in no mood. It's his fault she's in this state to begin with. It seems like gratuitous cruelty to make her recount where she's been, and to rub his own face in being the catalyst. ]

[ What's done is done. She's here right now. That's all that matters. ]

[ Somewhere in the midst of Yin's statement -- I won't by choice -- Hei's pulled her close again. Not as tight as before, but enough to let himself relax a little, to welcome the cool feathery rub of her hair against his chin. Her familiar scent mingles with his own muted sweat and the staleness of a sleepless night. Apart from the shadows under his eyes, and a particular bilge from the Underground clinging to his hair and skin, he's no different from before. But if he could read her thoughts, he'd snort at the idea of being a person. In her absence, he works and functions as well as ever. But when not working, he's become shadowy. He lives his ordinary life on standby. ]

[ He has no ordinary life. Yin's absence has made that clear. ]

[ After a beat, he lets her go. Stoops to gather her discarded stockings and shoes. He doesn't order her to slip them on. Instead, kneeling, he does it himself, letting her hands settle on his shoulders for balance. Simple movement. Matter-of-fact silence. Something to do so he won't start flailing her with more embarrassing overwraught words. ]

[If he doesn't want to ask, Yin doesn't want to offer.]

[In his embrace, she leans against Hei, and the scents are noticed only because she purposefully breathes in. Against him, she steadies herself. As he kneels, wordlessly, Yin switches his hands on his shoulders as they switch from one foot to the next.]

[This is what she focuses on: thigh high socks, shoes, Hei, and his shoulders. Touch.]

[His words, while telltale signs and disconcerting in their own right, weren't nearly as loud as this simple action. Yin's eyes opened - enough to be called a widening - when he started, and as they continue on, she just stares at him, soundlessly.]

[ Hei keeps his focus on the roteness of the task. It's not tender, the way he goes about it (he's never tender), but it's not an examiner's touch either. Bodies are no mystery to him, not when he's been trained to view them as a network of exploitable muscles and nerve-endings. All that knowledge is still there as he tugs the stockings up Yin's left leg, then the right. But tiny details seep into his consciousness all the same. The near-imperceptible weight of her hands starfishing his shoulders. The slight scrape from the rough pads of his fingertips -- on the damp arch of her foot, her ankle, her calf. The bare skin against his palms catches his attention -- contrasts in color, temperature and texture, the bluish lines of veins visible beneath a nearly translucent paleness. ]

[ None of it is such a surprise -- she's City Dead, she's cold, and she's always been on the pale and delicate and small side. (Verging on scrawny, he used to think when he first joined the team.) But now her proximity strikes him with a mute astonishment, like touching expensive pages of folio parchment. (She is pretty.) He slips her shoes on methodically as the moment stretches out, and his chest starts to tighten again. It's a pang similar to paranoia, even though the place is almost entirely deserted except for them. But something's happening here and he's not sure what. Just that it has to do with Yin's wide eyes and her hands brushing his shoulders and -- ]

[ He stands up quickly, not meeting her gaze as he focuses on brushing off the sand from his pants. After a beat he slips his hand around hers. Tugs, light but firm, ]

Let's go.

[Despite all the lack of expression, her feet move fluidly, toes pointing to slip down through the thin stocking layer, her slender legs moving under Hei's fingers.]

[She's incapable of being able to understand if anything is amiss, but when Hei's eyes don't meet hers, she marks it mentally. And her eyes stay on him, even when his back faces her, Hei's hand pulling her along, Yin watches him.]

[It's brief, but on their way, she squeezes his hand, even if it's not strong.]

[ He answers the squeeze of her hand with a light press of his own. There's something relieved to it, but somehow apologetic too, as if his thoughts skittered briefly to places they shouldn't go. (But in the end, it's easy for him to shelve that aside. Hei's been compartmentalizing both the personal and the professional aspects of himself for years. By now he owns less of a mind and more of a honeycomb -- stocked with repressed ideas and emotions.) ]

[ The walk to Yin's place isn't long. Yet with every step he feels like he did when he was eleven, already a soldier-in-training, with his hands on an extra set of carbines he couldn't wait to take somewhere private and examine. Which is unkind, because Yin is no weapon, or even the tool that the Syndicate considers her to be. Not for him. But he still wants to absorb every iota of her presence, not knowing how long it'll last. ]

[ At her building, he fishes the extra set of keys out of his coat. Opens the door to usher her in. In the dead stillness of her apartment -- (yet somehow it feels less dead and still than Hei's own) -- he says, quietly, ]

Be careful with this month's curses. They seem to have extended to 48 hours, instead of the usual 24.

[ Just a reminder, that while he's glad she's back in the City -- it remains a cesspool of chaos. ]

[Even Yin considers herself a tool. One for Hei, though, rather than the syndicate. She has no loyalty to them, and she never has, either. Not that would care - Dolls aren't capable of being loyal or disloyal. Oh, wait.]

[Even she was aware Hei treated differently, even knowing what she was, unlike the people from the City. Even Mao had started to change, just ever so slightly. Her own mind flows with few thoughts, but the ones she has center around Hei, for the moment.]

[As she's whisked into her apartment, she feels another odd, new and muted sensation - the feeling of being some place familiar, but safe. A place to return to. Was this what people called home?]

[She listens to Hei's warning and nods her head. It means little to her. Longer lasting curses. They didn't mean anything to her to begin with, but what they might lead to, how they might affect her teammates, that all had to be taken into consideration.]

Have you been cursed? [She has to ask.]

[ By habit, Hei's monitored her apartment in her absence, if only because her few belongings were there (and on the off-chance, perhaps, that she'd show up again one of these days). Even so, he goes through a sweep of the interior on instinct. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, so he relaxes enough to settle against the wall, both hands slipped into his pockets, eyes on Yin. Unlike her, home isn't a word he associates with places --- can't, when he's faced deracination all his life. Truth be told, he doesn't think of home in conjunction to the people he's with either. ]

[ But what matters to him is knowing that these people know how to neutralize him as a threat, and vice versa. There's a trust implicit in that knowledge -- and it's more important than any sense of home ever will be. ]

[ Yin's question gets a pause. Not because he's gathering his thoughts, but because it's startling, the idea that she's curious enough to want to ask. ] Once. It was enough. [ Enough of a headache. Enough to know the City's system -- such as it is -- is out of whack. More gently, ] Will you be okay on your own here? Or do you want me to stay? [ He's asking her, but it's an assurance that's -- perhaps selfishly -- more for his sake than hers. ]

[ She's just gotten here. He has enough things to do, but for now he doesn't want her out of his sight. ]

[She isn't sure. The word - the feeling - is so foreign at this point. It could just be a comfort in the familiarity of it. The relief she's no longer in oblivion. Relief at all.]

[She didn't think he could escape the curses entirely, but at least it's only been once. She has no remarks for that.]

[At first, Yin gives Hei a nod to his questions. She will be just fine on her own - she always is. But she stops and gives his second question a verbal response, while her hand reaches out to his wrist.]

Stay with me. [Even if it's not long, and he has to go. Just for a time, it would be easier on her to have him remain. Just a little longer. Long enough to not to feel alone. Long enough to not listen to white noise fade in the background.]

[ She says, Stay with me, and he reads volumes of sentences compressed into those three words. It's enough to make him want to ask what sort of place she was in before. But -- No. It's enough that she's here. Enough that she's fine with having him nearby. Her fingertips are cool points on the skin of his wrist. His hand slips out of his pocket on impulse, so he can cover her hand with his. All this time he hadn't let himself dwell too much on the memory of it, the exquisitely simple comfort of being close to her. And now all that nostalgia tumbles out of the mind-closet he'd packed it into. ]

[ (But really, Yin always has a tranquility that appeals to him, especially given the volatile environment he's grown up in. It's more than a Doll's programming. It's her.) ]

[ Very gently, he squeezes her hand -- then tugs in the direction of the kitchen. ] I'll make you something warm to drink. [ Granted, she doesn't need to eat or drink. But that doesn't mean she has to be temperatureless and tepid either. ]

[It takes Mao longer than is wise to register their arrival in the apartment. He had fallen asleep in Yin's closet, hidden and curled up amidst her meager possessions. When his sleeping mind hears her voice, at first he thinks it's a dream (Contractors don't dream) or a fluke in his system.

When he realizes it's actually her, he jerks awake. He has no desire to run to her, of course, but he'd be remiss not to greet her.

Except somehow, while he slept, the closet door shut. He bangs his shoulder against it, trying to get it open, but it will not budge. Damn it!]

[While she doesn't need something to drink - and didn't care before - since her death in the City drinking warm things gives her a brief moment where she doesn't feel numbly cold. As a result, she nods to Hei.]

[At first she's dragged along into the kitchen, but at hearing a muffled thud, she pulls away. She doesn't bother telling Hei why, either, but follows the sound to her room.]

[With just about as much apathy as she did most anything, Yin opens the door, only to have her eyes widen again. Why was Mao in her closet? That didn't seem very...well, logical. Maybe Dolls just couldn't understand logic.]

[ No. Not logical at all. ]

[ Hei catches that dull thud the same instant Yin does. Follows her, narrow-eyed and alert, to her room. His hands slip into his coat pockets -- to the wires concealed there -- by instinct. Not that he thinks her closet harbors monsters; if anything his first suspicion is that there's a rat in there. When the door opens to disgorge Mao, Hei offers no reaction beyond a raised eyebrow. But inside he's mildly confused. ]

I didn't think you were the pining type. [ Sure, he missed Yin too. But he sure as hell didn't curl up in her closet like ... an ownerless pet. ]

[Sweet freedom! Mao leaps out of the closet, but refrains from showing his pleasure. (Perhaps if it was just Yin, but certainly not around Hei.)]

I was not pining. [That isn't the sound of affronted dignity you hear. No, he's just stating the facts.] It was simply comfortable. [He's had a feline affinity for small, enclosed spaces, even before moving full-time into the body of a cat.]

[When Mao says it was comfortable, Yin reaches into her closet and grabs the nearest shoe to prop the door open with. Then she reaches for Mao, intending to pick him up.]

[And, still without a word, she turns to Hei.]

[They can speak - or not speak - of pining all they want. It's not supposed to mean something to Yin that anyone did or didn't, so she can't be disheartened by the notion anyone wasn't. Nor can she feel touched anyone did. That's why she's trying to carry Mao, right, because she doesn't care.]

[ Yeah, Hei has an affinity for small enclosed spaces too. Just as long as they don't spring commitments and strings on him. He lets Yin pick the cat up -- unable to decide what's stranger. The fact that Mao was lollygagging in Yin's closet. Or that Yin picked him up without needing to be prompted. (Or maybe the strangest thing is the use of the word lollygagging?) ]

[ Slipping his hands into his pockets, he looks them over for a moment -- 3/4ths of the team, together again. For however long that might be. Clearly this calls for a celebration. ]

Tea.

[ As in he's making some. Maybe even milk in a saucer for Mao. ]

[It's beneath his dignity to be picked up. But Mao allows it, because nobody told her to do it, and that is...interesting. Disturbing, but interesting.]

[Yin nods her head to Hei. Tea is warm. And so is Mao. His fur is soft to her skin, a sign he eats well, according to nutrition facts on cats. Good.]

[She follows Hei, still in her jacket, silent and intent.]

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action; I'm sorry I'm getting shorter over here

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