"I just don't know, man." Ed ran a sweaty hand through his hair, grimacing at the feel of his wet palm against his bare forehead. The bowling alley felt awfully warm for a simple spring day. Winter was over a month ago, so there was little excuse aside from their air-conditioner being broken. That wasn't, he reminded himself, wildly out of the question. The bowling alley was an awfully cheap one, if the inexpensive payment per game and the dust on the seats was any indication. "Isabel won't even talk to me! How do I apologize if I can't get a word out?"

Isaac stepped up to the line, a black bowling ball in both his hands. It wasn't often that they played together, but Isaac needed to get out of the house and Ed was starting to empathize. Fighting with Isabel made the entire dojo feel like an unstable battleground. Students ducked to get out of her way when she walked and shot him eyes that spoke of anything from sympathy to irritation. If he was a paranoid man, and he was, he'd think the entire dojo knew what he'd done and he didn't. He'd fallen into the trap of believing Isabel was just exhausted the night before, that she'd brushed him off because she was cranky. Come sunrise, however, she'd said a word or two at most to him, aside from "good morning". That, he thought, was a sure sign of an impending one-sided war. He was a general striving to go down in history and Isabel was the titanium fortress he had to break through, the kind he lost good men tearing down. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't sure where to begin. "She's gonna kill me, man! I'm gonna die!"

"Stop being such a drama queen." Isaac bent over and took the shot with an aggression unfit for the bowling alley floor, watching as his ball carried down the aisle with enough force to knock down half the pins before him. He muttered "yes" and fist-pumped. "Isabel is your best friend. Get her alone. Have a serious conversation with her."

"But how? I don't even know what I did!" Well, he kind of did know, but he wasn't sure of it. Isabel Guerra was a complicated woman who got mad for a small list of equally-vague reasons. The older they'd gotten, the more difficult it was to discern exactly what Isabel was mad at him about. Just when he thought he knew what he'd done wrong and he had an idea how to fix it, she'd yank the rug out from under him and he'd be forced to start all over again. The best way out of it was to just apologize immediately for whatever it was that he'd done and ask her to explain so he wouldn't do it again. Usually, though, she was willing to listen to his apologies. She wasn't doing that this time. It unnerved him. First he'd thought she was just upset about him leaving her there alone, which was fair, but usually that meant she was going to ignore him and cut him out until he finally broke and came to her on his hands and knees, begging for her sweet forgiveness. Isabel wasn't just being unsociable; she was being outright emotionless, like her mood had been chilling in the freezer overnight, so it might not have been that. Then, like an idiot, he'd thought that maybe she was just upset that he wasn't coming to her. The problem there was that, if she was going to get mad at him about that, she sure as hell would have done it sooner than three months in.

"Did you grow romantically intimate with her only to become physically and emotionally detached with no conversation or warning?"

"Uhh, no?"

"Then sorry, I can't help you."

"Is that…" Ed rubbed the back of his head, suddenly feeling exceedingly uncomfortable. "What's going on with you and Max?"

"Who's Max? I don't know a Max." Isaac took another swing with his black bowling ball, knocking down the remaining pins sadistically and swiftly. "Strike!" flashed across the screen above them in bold, bright rainbows. Ed blinked and opened his mouth, only to swallow whatever it was he was going to say. Whatever was going on there, he was not getting in the middle of it.

"Move over." He stood up and reached for his own bowling ball, a lime green one that he'd brought from home. "Let the master show you how it's done."

He was in the living room for the first time in days, curled up on the couch with the blankets from his bedroom over his shoulders. He was shivering, but that was probably just because he'd chosen to sit under the air conditioner. Max thought he must have looked sick. You are sick, the smartass half of his brain chided. You're lovesick.

If I ever have to think that again, I will take a knife to my own ears so I can't hear the sound of myself screaming.

"Wow, it's alive."

He murmured something along the lines of 'shut up', but it came out as, well, murmurs. Zoey plopped down beside him on the couch, hands folded over her stomach. Her hair swung above her shoulders in the braid she'd neatly tied. It made her look even younger than she was, and he'd tried to tell her that, but Zoey retained that it was the easiest thing to do in the morning. Her company did little to distract him, not when the action movie he'd half-heartedly rented was straying into 'romantic' territory. The beautiful woman- a strong-headed gun-slinging bombshell- he'd gotten to know very well aesthetically was being held out of a sky-rise window by her throat, struggling to swing back and forth. Max thought she might have been trying to wrap her legs around her attacker's- pull him over the ledge with her- but it didn't appear that she'd ever get the chance. With a lick of his creepy pale lips, the villain dropped the woman to her death, sending her soaring down what looked like hundreds of flights. Of course, as fate would have it, the protagonist caught her just in the nick of time, one hand on an implausibly long rope, a strong arm around her midriff, and a cocky smile on his face. "Easy there, Angel." Max mouthed the words he knew were coming. "Can't have you falling from heaven twice."

"You're very funny. Put me down."

She said that, but she was using one of her slender arms to wrap around the protagonist's neck, pursing her lips and shutting her eyes. It came sooner than Max expected, the flashes where he could see Isaac in his arms as they straddled a rope thousands of feet from the ground, lips pressed together so sweetly he lost his own breath at the thought. The dream came with memories- Isaac laughing into the nape of his neck, placing kisses to Isaac's ear as he slept, holding him close enough that their cold noses pressed to each-others… He was starting to figure out why girls watched romantic comedies.

A hand reached for the remote and paused the movie before Max had a say. "Okay, you are a sloppy, horrible mess of a human being and have been for a month now," Zoey sat up straight on the couch, reaching out and cupping his face in her smaller hands. She made him look at her, and he swallowed hard at the rush of shame that came over him. Not only had he managed to drive Isaac out of his life, but he'd worried his own sister sick. God, he didn't even wanna know what his dad must have thought. "Are you gonna tell me what's wrong, or do I have to blackmail it outta' ya?"

Max readjusted the blanket so he could see her better, eyes narrowing. "You're bluffing. You've got nothing." He'd hoped to catch her in a lie, stop her before she even got started on that foot, but she only smiled at him like a cat with a bird in its mouth, still kicking and fighting to live. Her hands fell to his shoulders.

"Nothing but three week's worth of angsty photos o' you making out with your pillow in your sleep."

Max opened his mouth, shut it, decided it wasn't worth it if she wasn't lying, and slid down in his seat.

"Fine."

The words came tumbling from his lips faster than he could have explained the phenomenon. Every tug at his chest, every ounce of pain he'd had bottled up for close to two months- it all came tumbling into one gargantuan passage of an outburst. He told her about how he and Isaac went a little further than they should have. He told her about how he'd been agonizingly, painfully infatuated with Isaac for a neat portion of his life. He told her about the weight he'd been carrying, the weight that told him he'd ruined what he and Isaac might've had over impermanent grief. He was surprised Zoey was still sitting there, listening tolerantly, by the time he was done. She was nodding and switching positions in her seat to be more comfortable while he vented all of his emotions, asking a question or two when she needed the information and cutting him off when he got- cough- a little too descriptive. Before long his tirades slackened to spur-of-the-moment grievances, and the weight in his chest was a little lighter. "So… what do you think?"

Zoey blinked, raised an eyebrow, and stared at him incredulously. "Wait, that's it? Max, you can't be serious. You're smarter than this."

"If this is about Isaac and I-!"

"No, it's not, because believe me, I'd rather I never have to think about you two doin' stuff again." Zoey shivered and rubbed either of her temples, massaging away her trauma-induced headache. "I'm saying that the solution here is obvious. Tell him. Explain what you're feeling, the how's and why's of your side of the story, and let him know you're not ashamed to be with him. There's nothing better to do in this situation than prove he's been on your mind."

Max sat there staring at her for what felt like a millennia before coming to the realization that, yes, his little sister had more common sense than he did and, yes, the solution to his problem really was that simple. He was leaping off the couch, tossing his blankets down- onto Zoey, actually- and racing to his bedroom to get dressed. He slammed his door with a little more force than he intended, but it wasn't like he'd knocked anything down. "Thanks, sis! I owe you one!"

Zoey hurriedly took the blanket in her hands and stared down at it, corners of her lips curling up and down, nose scrunching. "I hope you washed this!"

Max paused on the other side of his bedroom door, midway through tugging off his pajama shirt. With a snicker and a grin, he opened the door just a smidge and said: "Nope!"

He could hear Zoey shriek in revulsion and see the blankets go flying across the room and over the TV.

"I still don't see why you're leaving Mayview, considering you just woke up a day ago" Isabel could feel the irritation dripping off of her own tongue, hear it in her own cutting voice "but if you have to, I guess."

Spender smiled and wrapped his arms around Isabel, pulling her into his chest and running a hand through her hair like he'd done when he woke. Usually it would have calmed her, but there was something eerie to the situation, something she couldn't quite place. It was a feeling in her gut, her instincts warning her about clouds she couldn't see. She set her chin on his shoulder and stared at the monkshood flowers over the hill. "I won't be gone for long, Isabel. I just have to see the Consortium in person. It's imperative that they know I'm operational outside of my own mind. They might assume I'm in a coma, otherwise."

"Just tell them you're not, then!" He chuckled and pulled away, patting her on the head. It would have been comforting if it didn't feel so damn condescending. He insisted on leaving right at that very moment, at a quarter to four, for no reason other than "he just had to". She tried to suggest calling the rest of the club to the dojo to see him off, but he'd dodged her propositions left and right. Something was definitely still very off with him, and she wasn't sure what, per usual. She guessed she shouldn't have been surprised. Everybody was doing it lately, keeping their problems to themselves. Where there'd been anger before, there was only exasperation. She'd grown used to it- that sucked.

"Tell the others about my departure." Not that he said goodbye? Not that he'd be back soon? He patted her tense shoulders and trudged down the front porch steps to where his rental car sat. It was in her grandfather's name because Spender was technically still a 'dead' man walking, but that definitely wasn't what was bothering her. When he opened the car door, when he climbed in- there was something so unusual about him. Even when he'd held her, there was a distance between them that she couldn't close. Sure, she knew he was a man of many secrets, some she'd never find, but it had never felt so real and tangible- like she could touch the wall between them with her bare hands. Spender waved at her from behind the door's window, and she nodded back with her fists clenched.

Ed turned out of the tunnel just as Spender was headed in, eyebrows raised in surprise as he scarcely avoided a brush with the headlights of Spender's departing mobile. "What the-? Was that Mister Spender? Where's he going?"

Isabel stepped away from the stairs as he climbed them, reaching her hands into the pockets of her jeans so she wouldn't look ridiculous fiddling with them. She berated herself for reacting so distantly, for pushing him away like she was when the issue was of her stupid emotions. Even if Ed had hidden from her, even if he'd found solace with someone else- he was allowed to do that. He was allowed to go to other people for help- especially from his lover, as much as she detested calling Cindy that. "Izzy?" Ed called for her attention, but she kept her gaze somewhere on the monkshood flowers. "Where is he going?"

"A trip."

She couldn't see his face, but she felt his aura growing. It was hot like her frustration and wild like him, flaring for her to see while he felt every inch of those green waves. He reached one hand for her shoulder so she sidestepped it, eager to get into the house. She needed to go to her room- clear her head, read a book she already knew the ending to, just for some semblance of normalcy. He'd leave her alone when she got through the doors. All she needed was to take four easy steps and the conversation would be over.

When she moved to dodge one of his hands, they both grabbed her by the shoulders and tugged her closer. His natural scent, woods in the spring and spice- she took it in as much as she could, because that's as close as she could get to him, and turned her gaze to his chest. Their proximity was intoxicating in the greatest and wickedest way possible, and his hands were like sparklers on her bare skin. While his grip was assertive, he was gentle with her like he always was. His thumbs fondly massaged her where he held her, and somehow he managed to pull her even closer. "Isabel," not Izzy, she noticed. "Please, tell me what's wrong. If I don't know what I did I can't fix it."

She wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him all about how she wanted nothing more than to hear him vent to her, hold him around his neck and feel his hands at her waist, kiss him until neither of them could breath- but she couldn't. The pain in her chest was killing her, threatening to devour her throat the way it had her chest. If she told him she didn't want him to see Cindy anymore, he'd know- he'd know and things would become even more awkward between the two of them. He'd know and he'd drift even further away from her and she just couldn't handle that. "I don't need to tell you anything! It's not like you've been confiding in me!" Her words were laced with venom, poison she hoped nipped and bit at Ed the way his distance had been piercing her. Her fists clenched in her pockets again, tight enough to turn her tan skin pale. "I'm not going to sit here and let you manhandle me like a child! Let go of me- this conversation is over!"

"Isabel." She froze at the austerity of his voice. "Look at me." She didn't comply at first, turning her eyes to either side of their small personal bubble just to feel the satisfaction of denying him. She was angry, but she missed him; she was raging, but she loved him. She took a deep breath and turned her head up to meet his gaze with as much boldness as she could manage.

Isabel found herself instantaneously winded, like a snap of her fingers or a wisp of air. He had that dangerous look to him again, the one that made her legs jelly and her resolve putty in her hands. His lips were thin and his brows were furrowed, eyes narrowing at her with an intensity she'd never seen in him before. His aura hadn't grown, but it still whisked around him like a beacon for her to find. "Izzy…"

Her hands were at his chest, then, and it might have been because she wanted to push him away, but he only pulled her closer. His breath was on her lips and she hardly remembered how to breathe. She found the will anyway, venom of pure determination. "It's stupid!" It really was. She was being unreasonable. The struggle in her mind was by no means worth the level of distress she saw in him, the fear and the pain and the desperation.

"I don't care." He tilted his head to the side, and she instinctually grasped his shirt between her fingers, narrowing her eyes as she lifted her head away from his so her air was her own again. "If it's bothering you, if I did something to hurt you, I need to hear it." He followed her and pressed his forehead to hers, squeezing her arms in his heated hands. She exhaled and closed her eyes, biting down on her lip to keep from speaking without thought, something she felt herself desperately close to doing.

"Ed-!" She could feel his nose on hers, and she edged her eyes open to stare back at him. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs and scare him the way he'd been scaring her. She wanted to bang her fists at his chest and call him a hypocrite, say trust was a two-way street. It was just that every word she thought of, every word of every speech she'd recited in her head a million times for whenever he came out of his room- it all disappeared. Disdainfully, she was reminded that that's how it always went. Ed inched closer, close enough that his lips were in centimeters of her own. The hands at her shoulders fell to the crease of her arms. She shut her eyes as he leaned forward.

There was a cough, weak but sudden enough that she and Ed pulled back from each-other entirely, faces red and fingers twitching because the warmth that'd been there before was gone. Isabel cleared her own throat and glanced up. "Um, yes?" The man, more like a boy, standing before them was dressed in the Consortium onesie, looking uneasy and embarrassed, considering the situation. Isabel placed him around his early twenties, and that was being generous. He looked like a sixteen-year-old. The agent coughed into his hand again and stood up straighter, shoulders back and chin up.

"Sorry about interrupting" he gestured to her and Ed "whatever that was, but um, I was hoping you could point me in the direction of Richard Spender? I was sent to check up on him. He's been dead air for a little over three months now."

"Well, yeah." Isabel set her hands at her hips. "We thought he was actually literally dead? I mean, he's not so…"

"Wait, what?" The agent seemed to leap about three feet in his own skin, eyes wide and horrified. "Why wasn't the Consortium informed of this?"

"What? How could you not be? He was on a mission closing a breach in the barrier you guys informed him of!"

"Well maybe," Ed snickered "just maybe you guys aren't that great at communication?"

"You guys even sent a replacement for him!" Isabel snorted but the agent appeared less than amused, a scowl growing on his face as his deep blue aura swayed well above his skin. He was trying so hard to be tough- to be professional- but he sounded and held himself like a disconcerted preteen out of the house on his own for the first time. It wasn't just in the crack of his voice; it was in the words he chose. Isabel would have laughed, but cracking wise at an agent of the organization she would be a part of one day probably wouldn't bode too well for her.

"We did no such thing! I hate to enlighten you misinformed progenies," she tried not to point out the irony of that comment "but the Consortium had no idea there was a breach of any kind, and we certainly weren't aware of Richard Spender's death! I demand further explanation! If I go back to my directors with a tall-tale like that, I'll be demoted!"

Ed blinked and Isabel opened her mouth to retort, but a repulsive feeling clawed at her chest and she stopped to think. Isabel found Ed's gaze slowly, the way panic sets in. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and it was with great unease that she slipped it into her hand and held it to her ear. She didn't need to check to see who it was; if the consortium agent was there, that meant he came into town on the train. If he'd been on the train…

"Zarei? Yeah, I know. Get to the dojo." She turned on her heel and pushed through the heavy front doors, strutting into the training room with little more than a gesture to Ed and the agent to follow her. "We need to talk strategy."