Testing, Testing...

Who: Brett and Lily
Where: Around Town
When Afternoon

Despite the fact that it was still winter, despite the fact that it was still cold, Lily was enjoying the weather none the less. She sat on the steps of the Alexandrian Library sipping a hot chocolate that she'd picked up from the cafe down the block, the rest of her lunch sitting beside her, half eaten and somewhat forgotten as she sat there.

Lily looked down at her black shoes, her dark red skirt fluttering around her ankles. Her dark hair, mahogany in the daylight, curtained her face, blowing into her eyes with the slight breeze but it kept her neck warm. Yesterday had been strange. Awkward. She wasn't comfortable at all, being there for Jesse's argument with his daughter, but she still didn't think she should've been spoken to like that. But, Lily reminded herself, he was drunk and drunk people didn't always behave normally. The scar on her arm proved that.

Brett was on a mission to lose himself in things. Anything, really. He'd delivered his package to the Echo and now he wanted to be seen doing something that was 'else', away from that. He didn't want to be connected to it. Anonymous was that for a reason. So, he'd taken a walk, and that walk had lead him here - and when he saw Lily, though he probably shouldn't, he went with it, sitting down beside her. "Is this seat taken?" he asked her, figuring she'd remember him.

Lily looked up, startled, before she recognized who it was. "Brett?" She looked surprised, but smiled up at him as she realized it was someone she [sort of] knew and not a total stranger. "No, please sit. How're you?" Their past conversation had... had revealed some things she tried not to think about the past couple days, but her notes were still with her, in her bag, lurking just out of sight.

He would use this as a test, he decided. Of himself. He had to be able to do this, if he was going to be able to do this. He had to be able to deal with people. Not just piss them off and alienate them. It was an approach he hadn't tried in a number of years now, but he needed to be able to do this. So, he took a breath and inclined his head a little towards her. "Lily. I'm doing okay - you?" he asked her.

He seemed... not nervous, but as if he was reciting from a script so she smiled at him and handed him a box of chocolate chip cookies. "Alright, I suppose. Cookie?" Cookies cheered everyone up, or at least they should. And he looked like he needed some kind of cheering up.

Okay, so he hadn't expected cookies. It threw him entirely and in that moment, he actually took them. Then looked down at his hands and put them down on the table. "No. I don't really do cookies," he told her. That was probably the wrong answer - it generally was when he was dealing with Ginger. She always used to like making him cookies and got disappointed when he rejected them. He quirked a smile and took a cookie. "Maybe just one," he told her.

"Fresh baked," Lily said with a soft laugh, clearly not offended. "Although if you're not a cookie person, what kind of person are you? Me? I like apple strudel, but I can't make it very well. Then you have people who are muffin people, pie people, cake, turnovers. Everyone is something. It says a lot about someone's personality." She knew her bakery treats, that was for sure, which was unusual for someone who grew up like she did.

This time, Brett made sure that he considered his answer before he responded, flipping the cookie over and over between his fingers. "I like pie," he told her, after a moment or two, landing on that one as an answer, though he didn't really buy that it said something about him. Other than the fact he liked pie, of course.

"Mmmm," Lilly hummed in agreement, nodding in approval. "Pie is good. You can't go wrong with pie. It's home and comfort and safety and good things." She didn't say that's what he was, exactly, but she put it out there, that that's what his choice said about him. She wasn't going to pretend that she knew him, knew the kind of person he really was. "So what're you up to today?"

Brett raised an eyebrow at her assessment. That confirmed it for him - your choice of bakery food said nothing at all about who you were. He was certain he was none of those things. Quite the opposite in fact. "And what does apple strudel say about you?" he asked her, not going with her question just now, because the answer wasn't one he wanted to give, so he was playing for time and deflecting whilst he found a better answer.

Lily shrugged, blushing a bit and taking a sip of her hot chocolate. "In my experience of attempting to make it, I think it means that I'm annoying complicated," she chuckled. "Or maybe just annoying. I dunno." She shrugged again, looking out at the afternoon rush of people.

"You're changing the rules there," he observed, watching her watching other people. "For everyone else, you're talking about just what they like. For you, you're talking about your skill in making something. Different rules. Anyway, you can afford to have a cook if you wanted," he added, knowing that she had money.

"Mmm, well, I moved out for one and I like cooking. It calms me down." She frowned a little bit, palming her knees as she people watched. "I actually don't really know what it says about me. I never really thought about it in terms of myself." She really hadn't thought about it on her terms, and had hoped he wouldn't notice that, but, well, Brett was a cop. Or, well, used to be.

"Maybe you should come up with something then," Brett advised. "Nobody else is going to choose apple strudel, so you could make it be anything. Make yourself look good," he added. That was an easy thing to say when you were secure in the belief that it was all bullshit anyway.

He never answered her question about what he was up to that day, and it was kind of obvious, considering the somewhat absurd nature of the conversation. "Maybe," she said, not really sure how she could ever paint herself in a good light by her favorite dessert choice. "I see you've changed from Secret Agent to civilian," in reference to what he was wearing the last time she saw him to his more casual dress now. "Or are you meant to be undercover today." Lily tried to joke with him, wondering if he even remembered their last conversation, although he must have if he had come to sit with her.

It was ironic, almost, her comment. or, at least, it made him realise that for the first time in three years right now he wasn't undercover. He'd finally stopped being a cop. He'd simply never thought about it in those terms before, and the realisation was weirdly liberating and her question got a rare smile, even if it wasn't really for her, but for the situation. Once upon a time, Brett Trent had loved being a police officer. Now, he hated it, he was glad to see it go. To finally be free of all of that. "I had business to do that day. Today - not so much," he told her, finally biting into the cookie.

"Today is a relaxing day?" she asked, hoping it was. He'd been -- or at least seemed to be -- upset and just not in a very good mood the last time she saw him and while he was still a little bit like that, he did have a more relaxed kind of air to him, especially with that smile. At least he was eating the cookie.

He made himself answer, though he really didn't want to. he didn't want to talk about himself and his day at all, but he couldn't get through what he needed to get through by just standing back and being the dumb muscle. Sure, there would be times when that was all he needed to do, but he couldn't always be Eris' shadow. Sooner or later, someone would corner him on his own, and he needed to be able to handle that, at least for a time, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. He had to be able to do this. "I wouldn't necessarily go that far. Just running errands that didn't need me to be all dressed up," he told her. Whilst he generally always wore a suit, most of his attire was a long way from 'smart'. A lot of it looked very definitely 'lived in', some of it was bordering on 'slept in'. Plus, he hadn't shaved for a few days now. But, according to some, that was a good look on him.

"Well, it's a nice day for errands although I know I'm ready for spring," despite it still being the end of January, with spring still weeks away. Lily bit her lip, studying him out of the corner of her eye. He was unshaven, which looked good on him, she had to admit, a little tired. Definitely worn, less put together than he was in his snazzy suit but he looked more comfortable, even though he was still clearly a little antsy. And she wondered if she was just making up the feeling that he was just killing time sitting there with her. "Is everything okay?" Lily asked gently, not looking expectant, just there if there was something he might want to talk about, even though she was really just a stranger to him. They weren't friends and she wasn't really that sure what she might have to offer someone like Brett anyway.

There was a time when that was the question that he asked of her. He'd looked out for her, over the years. He'd considered it part of his job, though an unofficial part. And then he'd stopped, disappeared when he got screwed over. Someone like her didn't need someone deep in the shit with mafia ties anywhere near her. And he didn't need anyone to rely on him that he had to give a damn about. It sounded strange, hearing the question from her. "Yeah, blossom, I'm fine," he assured her, a ring of truth in that. he was more fine than he'd been in a while now, though he knew he wouldn't be able to really relax until the folks at the Echo did whatever they were going to do with the goldmine he'd just dropped in their laps. "How about you - you get things sorted at all? You said you moved out. How's the old lady taking that?" he asked her, deciding that he needed to be more proactive about things if he didn't want her focusing on him too much.

The endearment took her by surprise. She didn't really hear them from people besides the standard, so Lily didn't really look into it. And she noticed that he didn't elaborate, shifted the attention of the conversation back on her. She could get that, not wanting to talk about yourself (although apparently there was times when she had a problem with that). "She was... fine with it, which makes me wonder if I just wasted twelve years of my life." Her grandmother's reaction to her moving out clearly still confused her, still bothered her, but she wasn't going to look the gift horse in the mouth. It wasn't like she was ignorant to the fact that she wasn't the most socially developed person her age. She knew she had her issues, which is why she really didn't have a problem saying that she wondered if she just wasted nearly half of her life. "I'm living with my friend, Jenny. Her brother's a cop. Nice guy, but he hasn't been around lately so that's part of the reason I moved in with her. I don't like her being by herself."

Brett didn't feel able to comment on whether or not she'd wasted years of her life, but he couldn't stop himself from upnodding at her final comment and asking, "What cop?" He knew a good few, after all. And he knew some of the bad ones as well. Seemingly all those years of looking out for Lily hadn't entirely died away.

"Jackson Haas? You know him?" Jackson was a nice guy, at least he was the few times she had met him, and Jenny absolutely adored him. There was a familiarity about his question that she hadn't heard in a long time and there was something nice about it. She'd always liked Brett and had genuinely missed seeing him when he stopped coming by. But, she supposed, everyone had to grow up.

He snorted a laugh at that. "Small fucking world," he breathed, almost inaudibly. "Yeah, I know Jack," he told her, in a more normal tone. "He's a good guy." Much better guy than he was, but these days that wasn't hard. For all that Brett hated the way that Haas tried to stick his oar in and steer Brett's life in directions he had no interest in going in, he was a good guy. A good guy with good intentions. Lily would be safe enough with him watching over her.

"Yeah, he is. He hasn't been around a lot lately though. Jenny's been worried. She doesn't say it, but I can tell." She wasn't even sure if Jenny had told Jackson that she moved in and while she didn't have a problem with Jenny's brother, she knew how overprotective he could be and really didn't want to get yelled at or cause any problems. "I'm thinking about getting a new job. Get my teaching license." It was all very normal and she really wasn't so sure how interested Brett was in listening about her activities, but he'd asked.

Brett hadn't seen much of Jackson lately either - which had been something that he, conversely, had been damn grateful for. The guy had been getting cloyingly close, and that he'd taken a step back meant that Brett didn't have to worry about his plans crashing and burning in any other directions. As it was, it felt like he was building a house of cards. Still, to hear that Jack had been absent from someone else did spark worry in the back of his mind. He'd have to put out some feelers. Hopefully it was just that the guy got busy at work. Sometimes the job took over. Still, that was a concern for another time, not right now. "Yeah? you wanna be a teacher? What kind?" he asked her, showing interest in that as he finished off the cookie.

Lily held out the little box in case he wanted another one. "Grade school. Kindergarten through maybe fifth grade?" It had been something she'd thought about off and on over the months, especially since she was almost 31. Unmarried and the likelihood that she'd have kids of her own were getting slimmer by the years and she liked children. "I figure getting out of the house was the first good thing I did to change my life. Shed the old, bring in the new." She rested her chin on a fist, looking at him. "What do you think?" It wasn't that she was looking for approval for her plans, but a second opinion wouldn't hurt.

"I think if that's what you want to do with your life, then you should do it," Brett said, taking another cookie but, as before, not eating it, instead returning to flipping it round in his hands.

She nodded slowly, setting the box back down and looking back out at the people and the cars. "And what about you?" she tried again, because really, she didn't think that Brett had sat down with her to grill her about her life and if he had, well, that was kind of... she wasn't exactly sure what. Strange? Lily purposefully left the question open like that, not prying into any specific point in his life and he could answer with what he felt comfortable with, but the fact that she had asked again meant that she really was curious as to how he was doing.

"I have a few things I'm setting up," Brett told her, after a moment or two. Whilst he was fine with the idea of the business he was going into. Whilst he knew it was completely legal and above board, he wasn't entirely sure how someone like Lily, who still seemed to be able to retain her air of innocence, would take being told that he was starting up an escort business. And he had no intention at this stage of saying who his business partner would be. So, unless she pressed the matter, vagueness would be the order of the day.

"Yeah?" Lily looked pleased for him, smiling softly. "Well that's good. Business prospects?" She knew not everyone always operated on the legal side of the law, although she wasn't sure if Brett would partake in illegal endeavors. And his answer had been just as open ended, just as vague, so her further question, while a little more pointed, was still open enough for him to answer as he felt comfortable.

He nodded. "Yeah, business prospects, guys gotta earn a living." Last time they'd met, he'd managed to get through it without mentioning that he'd left the force, and he wondered if she still thought he was a cop. The way she asked about business prospects, he figured she assumed that, but he wasn't entirely sure why. He didn't like to think about the obvious answer - that Lily had heard about what he's supposedly done, apparently become. He wasn't going to ask - he didn't want that confirmed. As much as he didn't want his old life back, he'd like to remain that guy that he'd been, at least in one person's eyes. "You get anywhere with things about your father?" he asked her.

Lily shook her head, looking at her purse that sat on the step beside her, where the little notebook still was. "I've been moving," she said. "And... I dunno. I don't really remember anything about my life with him. My mom left and I barely remember her. He used to hit me. He was a drunk. Him being murdered by the mob is an interesting development that scares me." She was very honest with him. He had been honest with her when she asked him about what he knew, which wasn't much, but it was enough to make her consider things in a new light and she was understandably unsure if she wanted to pull more into the light.

Brett's face clouded over, his jaw tightening slightly when she said that the guy had hit her. He had very certain and old fashioned views about hitting women. It was something you just didn't do. Especially when they were your daughter. He wondered if Brooks had known that, back in the day. Lily's father was long dead when Brett had entered her life as a raw recruit, Brooks was his first partner. Checking up on Lily out of hours had just been part of the routine. Brett knew some of what had happened to her father, he knew the guy's service record, but he'd known nothing about the man. And right now, he was just grateful that he hadn't known the man. Fuck - what was it with fucking Police Chiefs these days? The current one was fucking corrupt, the last one an abusive bastard. Was it really that hard to be a decent man in this city? Brett considered himself and realised he already knew the answer to that question: yes. Yes, it really was. "Maybe you're best just leaving him buried and getting on with your own life then," he said, his voice lower than he'd intended, those defensive tendencies kicked up a notch.

She nodded slowly, the tone in his voice not going amiss. Jesse had gotten that way when she spoke briefly of it. "Someone told me that maybe I've forgotten all about it for a reason." Her mind had gone to a dark place when she thought of it. She didn't particularly want to touch upon those thoughts again. People liked to consider her innocent. Naive. And Lily was naive, but to an extent. In a city like this, the only way she could keep herself sane was to look at the bright side of things whenever she could and as much as she could. It was easier, when she was a teenager and she lived in a nice house compared to her peers. It had progressively gotten harder the older she got. The less things were hidden from her. "Someone else also said that I should find out what I can, that part of me is missing if I don't have the foundation for the first eight years of my life."

The way she said it, Brett wondered if he'd told her that, but if he had, he didn't remember it. Of course, he did recall being in a particularly bad mood the day he'd talked to her. "Some things are better left buried," he advised. "You can look all you want, but once you know, you can't unknow. And maybe it's something you really don't want to find out." He wasn't one for picking at scabs, generally. There were times when you should just leave well alone.

"So I hear," she said with a little smile, finally looking at him. He seemed cautiously adamant about that, about her not looking into things. "You're very sweet." Her tone held no room for the objections that she knew he would give. "But I think I should find out. Eventually. Wouldn't you want to have all the facts about a period of time that you didn't know a lot about? If you couldn't remember years of your life but there were big signs that said something bad happened. Wouldn't you want to know what it was to see if it was what made you the kind of person you are? If you were really that kind of person normally or if something shaped you to be that way." It was a specific sort of hypotheses, but hopefully he would get what she meant. To have all the information about events that may very well have shaped the kind of person you came out to be. Not that Lily was entirely positive, nor did she put a lot of stock into what happened in her childhood shaped who she was at thirty years old. Still, there were aspects of your personality that were shaped in childhood. Forgetting how it was shaped made things difficult when figuring out who you were.

As much as he tried, Brett couldn't help the bristling when she called him 'sweet', but at least he bit back actually making a comment about it, reminding himself that it said more about her than it actually did about the reality of him. She was the kind of person who thought that people were sweet, despite all evidence to the contrary. And also, she lacked a lot of evidence. "If you're going to find out, you're going to find out," he told her, knowing that he'd closed off more and that he needed to find his way out of that. This was a test, he reminded himself. And this moment was a step towards failing it.

"That's not really what I asked," she pointed out gently, showing that she noticed his avoidance when questions were directed about him. There was no accusations in it though, just that she noticed but she didn't mind. "So have you settled down at all or do you have a pretty girl you're seeing?"

"I took it as being a rhetorical question. I don't have large parts of my life I can't remember," Brett pointed out to her. "I can't really put myself in that position." Unfortunately, he remembered his life all too well. There was no writing her latest question off as rhetorical though, not that it was an easy one to answer. His thing with Eris was... hard to define. Especially because he refused to do so. "I never married, no," he told her, deciding that was a nice, truthful response.

He wasn't very good at this conversation thing. A man of few words, that's what Brett was. "No? And a good looking guy like you doesn't have anyone special in his life?" Her voice was light and teasing, trying to get him to lighten up.

Brett started to roll his shoulders self-consciously, overly aware of the scars that she couldn't see. he stopped himself, mid-movement. He needed to stop that. He needed to be able to take that kind of thing - she'd warned him that he'd get it, after all. He pulled himself together and cocked his head to the side a little. "Didn't say there wasn't anyone, but..." he trailed off. That was the best he could do right now, and hopefully she'd fill in the gaps herself. And maybe not ask too many questions. The woman he was talking about was, after all, currently thought by most to be dead.

"I hope she makes you happy," she said genuinely. Brett deserved to be happy. Everyone deserved to be happy, of course and she hoped that Brett was able to find happiness with someone. That one good thing that everyone should have. That she had yet to find. "And on that, I should probably get back to work."

Brett didn't have an answer for her comment about his happiness. Especially not when that was so raw in his psyche right now. It was only last night that he'd realised that that emotion was, apparently, missing from the ones he had available to him. That there was just an empty gaping hole where any feelings of joy should have gone. It seemed that nothing in life made him happy. Even when he wanted it to. He was grateful when she moved them on, excused herself to leave. "I shouldn't keep you then," he said, readily agreeing with the proposal.

Lily stood, picking up her purse and the box of cookies. She looked at the plain little box, still rather full before holding it out to him. "Here. You look like you could use the rest of these more than I could." She smiled at him. "It was nice to see you again. I hope to see more of you soon." It was genuine, what she said, and with the smile it showed. "We don't have to talk next time if you don't want to." Meaning if he just wanted to sit with someone, she wouldn't mind. He didn't have to try make conversation around her if he didn't want to.

He ignored the cookies and looked up at her, making a slight face. "Was I really that bad company?" he asked her, hating to ask the question, but needing to know. If she was actually coming out and telling him that if she saw him, he didn't need to talk? Very clearly he had a long way to go.

Lily laughed at the look on his face, a soft, sweet sound that was just amused. "Brett, not everyone is a people person. Not everyone is good at talking. What I meant was you don't have to force yourself to make conversation if you don't want to. If you just want the company, I don't mind. I like your company. You're very safe feeling," she told him honestly. He didn't look so safe now than he did those years ago, with the stubble and the clothes, but she still felt safe around him. "But what am I? A silly girl who plies people with cookies so they feel better. But if that's something I can do for you, I don't mind. I'm not the world's best conversationalist either."

She wasn't the first person to say that he made her feel safe. He didn't fully understand it, but apparently he had that effect, and he couldn't fully put it down to the girl's naivety. "Good luck with the teaching," he told her, because he didn't think he could respond to her statement that she was just a silly girl. She had been once, he knew that. And these days, well, he didn't think he knew her well enough to make a comment on that.

Lily put the little box of cookies in her purse, shrugging. "Thank you. Good luck with your business prospects and that girl of yours." With a little nod, she turned away, heading back up the steps of the library, the dark red skirt of her dress swirling around her knees. Brett had certainly given her something to think about regarding her father.