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...You want to be perfect — no. Now I'm the one who's been imprecise. You want to be impenetrable.

[He hands over the paper, obliging, and tucks the pen behind his ear in an idle bit of mischief for his own quiet amusement.]

If that's what it is, it's an impulse I understand, believe me.

Yes.

[There's no fanfare as she sets the paper down. The price tag falls off her notebooks, and that seems to be that: she's free to take them. Rosalind clutches them closer to her chest and nods to Kurama, indicating they ought to head out.]

You can well imagine why a fifteen year old girl in 1886 would want to learn to be impenetrable. After that first semester, I learned that in order to be taken seriously, I would have to ensure I didn't provide any easy ammunition to my detractors. That extended to tone and subject material as well as word choice.

[He follows her then, silently, mulling over what she's said and fitting it to his own vibrant, profound memories of her: of the heel of her hand coming up to her teeth to try to stifle the upwelling of emotion that had followed her release from the wendigo; of the rigidity in her shoulders when he'd thoughtlessly twisted her longing for Robert and turned it into a knife against her; of her genuine pleasure, even excitement, at the gift he'd made her of the ojigi; of the softness in her voice when she'd wrapped her arms around nine multicolored roses and longed for a ghost in her memories.

Rarely is she impenetrable around him. It's what she does when she's upset, of course — her defense mechanism against a situation that sets her off balance, or presents her with circumstances wildly out of her control. But without those extenuating conditions, she — unwinds. Shows her hand.

Never fears for whether she'll be taken seriously.

He smiles, softly, and quickens his steps a fraction to bring himself up next to her, using the momentum to hold the door for her as they exit the Emporium, and now extending his arms to her for real.]

...I'll take a few of those, if you like. If you'd prefer to read while I walk you home, that is.

. . . no. But I thank you for the offer.

[For more than that: the implication that he's beginning to understand the sheer importance of Robert. Rosalind offers him a slight smile, rare even for him: something soft and pleased. It doesn't last, but the fact it was there at all speaks a great deal.]

And for rushing to my aid at a moment's notice.

...I promised you.

[He says it lightly, a fond bright echo of another adventure they'd had together when he'd meant it much more profoundly, and his rescue had been much more serious than the one he's completed today.

A smile like that...strange to think that there had once been a time in his life when he'd thought such things didn't belong to him, for one reason or another.

It makes him, fleetingly, think of his mother. Not because Rosalind is very much like her, of course, or anything to do with how he sees her, and it takes him a second or two to place why before he realizes —

Of course. That's how she used to smile at him when he would coax her to eat, murmuring so sweetly about what she would do without him, how he always takes such good care of her...

He doesn't, obviously. And yet.

And yet.]

Happy Valentine's Day, Rosalind.

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