Despite (or probably because of) the garish disguise Faye had put on; the owlish Jackie-O sunglasses and the big polka dot scarf wrapped around her head, Marjorie could recognize that disgruntled and livid pout anywhere.

"Going incognito, are we?" Marjorie giggled as she sat beside Faye in the Emergency room. "You should have told me earlier, darling, I would have brought my clown nose."

Suddenly noticing the big bandage over her nose and that her lower lip was swollen, Marjorie wished the earth would open up and swallow her whole. Or at least her vocal chords.

"I'm such an ass." was all she could say by way of an apology.

Faye sunk into her wheelchair like she wanted it to swallow her whole, and her arms were crossed as if she was ready to pull out a pair of Glocks and shoot everybody in the Emergency room to Hell.

And judging by Jet's morose expression, she would have started with him first.

Not one to gush outrageously over babies or scream like a banshee if she saw blood, Marjorie maintained a calm and joking demeanor. It was a useful technique she learnt from fighting against construction deadlines and the sometime unpredictable cockups they entailed.

She was full of questions, but she settled on the easiest one first: "Are you alright?"

Without even turning to look at her, Faye whipped her arms out and wrote dizzyingly fast on a little notepad, crisscrossing several times and then finally settling on one word: No.

Studying the words she had crossed out, Marjorie finally gasped out, "You broke your nose and lost a tooth?"

Jet sunk into his hands a little deeper. Marjorie rubbed a tired hand down her face. "Hey, aren't you supposed to keep it for the bounties?"

He bolted like his ass was on fire. A firm believer in making men pay for everything (being twice divorced herself), she watched his exit with eerie calmness. Marjorie seated herself down in his vacated seat, studying Faye's profile. After a while she sighed. "It was such a beautiful nose too."

Faye sighed too, this time scribbling leisurely on her notepad. She ripped it off and passed it to Marjorie. The doctor said it should be okay. Jet managed to reset my nose when we both stopped freaking out.

"He looks like he got dragged backwards across hot asphalt." Marjorie commented about the scratches on his face. "What happened?"

Faye managed to look a bit shame-faced. A bit of an altercation.

"An altercation? Isn't that what you do to shorten your dresses?"

Faye tsked impatiently. It was a soap opera of a bitch-fight, okay?

Marjorie kept quiet, studying the male nurses that flitted to and fro. Leaning forward, she asked: "So.. did you win?"

Faye couldn't help but smile, until she winced from the pain that is.

Sure I did. Doesn't he look like he's in hell?

"Knowing you, it's probably not all his fault, is it?"

It was just an accident. Faye confessed. I've never seen him like this before.

"I'll go talk to him." Marjorie promised, settling a hand on her shoulder. Faye set her chin on it in silent thanks.

888

Jet was standing outside, in the middle of a phonecall on his cellphone. With his back towards the Emergency doors, he didn't notice that she was behind him and so she managed to catch snatches of his phone conversation. Unlike the usually tacit and adorably awkward Jet that she had come to know, he was interrogative and businesslike as he asked questions and responded in his usual grunts: the long Hmmms that told her that he was thinking.

"You're sure it's him?" he asked after a while, staring at the passing cars. His tone was urgent, his posture still and erect. All sense of clumsiness or self-consciousness she associated with Jet's demeanor had drained away and was replaced with a sense of determination and stern resolve. Slowly, Marjorie came to realize that this was Jet Black in his element.

It was electric.

Their eyes met, and he ended the phone call abruptly with "Thanks, Ed. I'll talk to you later."

"Still bounty hunting?" Marjorie asked curiously as he deliberately slipped the phone into his pocket.

"Can't teach an old dog new tricks." he shrugged casually. Unlike his comrades who could shake off impending doom or their true intents with the same carefree shrug, however, it made him more serious. There was a steely glint in his charcoal eyes, and a slight furrow in his brows that made Marjorie excited.

He was puzzling and thinking about something more important than club-openings and fashion galas.

It was something that had a significant impact. It was something real.

"Coffee?" Marjorie offered him a cup before sitting down on the curb. Blowing the steam off, she studied him from the corner of her eyelids.

Marjorie had a penchant for classic black and white movies, and it struck her that Jet was the classic 1940s hero - it didn't matter if he was dressed in silk and sequins or a well-tailored tuxedo. His character and his integrity would always stand out, and as such - he was the first man Marjorie ever had any respect for. It wasn't just his solid stoicism she admired, but the subtlety of his emotions. It clung about him like his woody lumberjack aftershave. She suspected that wholesome manliness of his was so ingrained that he woke up smelling like that all the time.

"Thanks for coming." he said suddenly, breaking the silence in his quiet and gruff voice. He sipped his coffee and looked off at the traffic, something else she liked about him: how he always looked so abashed when he said something sincere.

"It's no problem, I was awake anyway."

"I can see." he replied, observing that she was still in her evening gown.

"Don't worry, everybody at the party's too smashed to notice I'm gone." she said deliberately, knowing that he didn't care much for their social functions.

"I wasn't worried about that." he argued, slightly angry. So sincere. she couldn't help thinking, chuckling into her coffee cup.

He looked at her quizzically. "She's alright." Marjorie said after a while. He grunted.

"We both know how she is." she continued, stirring her coffee. "She takes everything personally... You both do - Ah ah ah!" she admonished before he opened his mouth to interject. "I've never seen two people so passionate and dynamic and so fucking clueless about peaceful social interaction ..." she stamped her stiletto heel into the ground, "It's the most annoying thing I've EVER come across!

"You both make me feel so small, you know." she confessed truthfully, tapping her finger against the rim of her cup. "It feels like there's a secret universe that you both know about, the thing that makes rich, bratty socialites like me insignificant."

"Well, we neither of us grew up with golden spoons in our mouths." was all Jet could say, thinking it was a vast understatement. "But it's not like you don't have a job."

Marjorie nodded in silent assent. "I still envy you, though."

"The grass is always greener on the other side." he mouthed formulaically, his thoughts preoccupied.

"That wasn't just any phone call, was it?" she asked suddenly, eyeing him with that all-knowing feminine intuition he remembered Spike to follow a lead on.

He rubbed a tired hand along his forehead and emitted a weary, ironic chuckle before he settled his charcoal black eyes on her. "A phone call on a bounty isn't just any phone call."

"You're evading my question." she scolded him.

"I know." he replied nonchalantly, ignoring the piercing glare she was leveling at him. "And you should know by now that living with Faye has made me immune to the female glare."

"You're taking all the fun out of it." she pouted.

"I'm also immune to pouting."

She laughed, finally settling into surveying the night sky. "It's something you don't want her to know about, huh?"

"You're not going to open Pandora's box tonight, Marjorie." he warned her.

"You don't want her to go with you." It wasn't a question. "You're not going off to get yourself killed, are you?"

Jet was startled out of his calm indifference enough to spill some coffee.

"Was that what you guys were arguing about tonight?"

He was getting increasingly agitated. She could tell by the deepening furrow in his brow, and the bristling in his beard. "She has a right to know, Jet."

"Look, Marjorie..." he stated in a dangerously calm voice, his eyes finally locking with hers with such righteous anger she couldn't look away. "You know nothing about us to know what she has a right to know, or not to know. I'll take care of her, if I have to lose an arm again to protect her, I will."

"Her broken nose is a weird way of showing it." she contradicted, feeling the rage well up in her until she could almost hear her heart beating.

She watched his eyes soften. He grunted and patted her apologetically on the head and let out a long sigh.

"That was something else entirely." was all he managed to say, not wanting to vindicate himself by dismissing it as an accident. He knew it was, but he still felt rotten about the emotions that led up to it.

Draining the last of his coffee, he stood up and dusted the back of his black pants down. Marjorie did the same, looping her hand impulsively in his arm as they walked back to Emergency.

Catching their reflections in the sliding doors on their way back in, he barely suppressed a completely random thought.

I wish it were Faye.