Owner	Pose
Chas Chandler	The Garden has decided that it's nighttime at the moment. This doesn't always correspond to what time it is in the real world, or even what time it might be at the entrance of the Castle. There are hovering crystaline lights that give soft blue and soft yellow glows to the flowers and topiaries that mark the garden and give beacon points for the blue and gray moths that flutter to and fro amidst the plants.     Chas stands at the edge of the garden, looking out over the vastness of the clouds beyond. His hands are in his pockets and he is silent. His back is straight but even so, there is a somber nature to his posture. What he was talking about in the bar was still weighing heavily on his mind, but he was recovering... if slowly.
Jonathan Sims	Jon comes out into the garden, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and his favorite web-decorated lighter. The pack is different than any Chas has seen him carrying before--instead of Silk Cuts, he's smoking Marlboro 100's, menthols. He puts the cigarette into his mouth and lights it with a sigh.     "She looked like him, Chas." A pause, and a sniffle. There are tear streaks down his cheeks, like he'd been crying while Chas was gone. "Phoebe, I mean. When I spoke to her last. She looked like... the puppet. The unConstantine. She stood there and she snapped at me and all I could see..."     He shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I was supposed to keep an eye on her for you. I should've stepped up in Zatanna's place or... something."
Chas Chandler	Chas shakes his head. "No. You did what you thought best... this was liable to happen eventually. I just..." He sighs, because the gravity of the situation calls for it. "I just thought it could be put off longer. Silly notion on my part" he says.     He looks over at Jon, taking note of the tear streaks. "I'd say those things will kill you, but I don't know that that's true for you..." he says. "I take it you and Cael talked further about her situation inside?" he asks, his expression solemn but resolute.
Jonathan Sims	Jon peers down at the cigarette and shrugs. "No, they won't kill me. My body heals most of the damage pretty quickly. Doesn't seem to clear out the addiction, though it may be largely psychological at this point. I tend to need a smoke when I've dealt with a statement or anything terribly emotional." Another shrug and they take a long puff on the cigarette, sighing.     "Doesn't taste the same," he mutters. "But I'll adjust."     He looks to Chas, then, and nods. "Yeah. I... broke down a bit. Needed to, I think. I want to help her, I really do. I /want/ to chase after her and pin her down and tell her everything's going to be alright and we'll never give up on her. But what's the point if /she/ doesn't want that from /me/? I mean... she doesn't want me. She wants something that never existed. Or maybe something that /could/ exist if John ever got over himself enough to take on an apprentice. Or, hell, maybe a demon. Maybe the bloody demon really /is/ what she wants. And what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to /say/?"     He runs his free hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. "She held me at arm's length, always. Said things about not having the same gods, being jealous that my gods spoke to me. And I keep wondering... what if I'd just stepped in? Been more firm? But I was in no bloody mental place to do so, and I thought Zatanna had it, and then..." He sort of spreads his hands, like he's letting something drop.     "/Fuck/."
Chas Chandler	Chas nods and then frowns. "You're going more native, Jon. Those aren't even Cuts." He arches a brow at the man. "Do I need to get you a hat and cowboy boots too?" Sobering he puts a hand on the man's shoulder. "It'll be alright, Jon. We both did what we could... now anything that comes from it has to happen from her."     He shakes his head. "We can't hold onto it forever. Kids grow up. Move on. Create distance. That's part of what it is to be human, right?" he asks. "If she needs us and is willing to stop focusing on the past... she knows where to find us."     He takes another deep sigh just to add to the gravity. "Call me a cowboy too..." he says and extends a hand to Jon for him to get one for himself. "Not like it's likely to do anything for me. But some things just call for the psychological feel of it, yeah?" he says with a small, sad smile.
Jonathan Sims	Jon looks down at the cigarette pack in his hand. "Every time I pulled out a pack of Cuts," he says slowly, "I thought of... /him/. Not John. The demon. The meat puppet. The... /thing/ that hurt me, and hurt you, and..."     He squeezes his eyes shut. "I just couldn't anymore. I couldn't. That bastard took even that away."     They shake themself and pull out a cigarette that they then hand over to Chas. "She's not my /kid/, Chas. I'm not looking at this like that. She's a member of the team, and I failed her. She shouldn't have been one of the leaders. I should have offered more guidance and help. I had responsibilities, and I feel like I dropped them. I can't help her /now/... could I have helped her then? I don't... I don't know. But I have to... I don't know. Look at my mistakes and do better in the future. Especially if I'm reaching out and trying to /mentor/ people."     He frowns. "How'd it go, anyway? What'd she say to you?"
Chas Chandler	Chas sighs and puts the cigarette in his mouth. He raises a finger and a bead of white-gold dances there, flickering in unseen wind. He lights the cig and takes a long draw before blowing out a bit of the smoke. "It went.. poorly..." he says, blowing out the rest of the smoke. "There was a lot she said, but the things that stick out most? She claimed she was done with family. Done with me, Batman, and any other family she laid claim to..." he says, flicking off a bit of the ash.     "She wanted to deal with the demon and be gone. Claimed it was your idea... which I don't think it was... but that's what she's using as an excuse." He takes another draw. "It hurt. Esepcially when she said 'I'm not your daughter any more than he was my dad, because those people don't exist.' But..." he lets out the smoke in two long lines from his nostrils. "It's... It's done. Not much can be done when she's at that breaking point and I had done everything I could in terms of trying."
Jonathan Sims	Jon closes his eyes for a moment. "Gods," he mutters. "Poor Tim." He shakes his head.     After a moment his eyes fly open. "/My/ idea?! What...?"     He pauses, and goes back through his memories, and frowns. "Ahh... I think I see what's going on. She said if I told you and Tim and the others about what she was planning, she'd leave. I told her to leave if she wanted. That it was her choice. She is, naturally, trying to make it out like it isn't. Like I was /telling/ her to leave, rather than calling her adolescent bluff." A sigh. "That is what it is, I suppose."     He frowns. "I just hope we don't have to go find her and stop her, someday. I hope she'll come back, better for the experience."
Chas Chandler	Chas nods and pulls more from his cigarette. "I'm not sure if I should reach out to Tim or not... I don't know the guy all that well to be honest, Phoebe's friend sure, but her friends were just that, her friends." He gives Jon an apologetic look. "Maybe you can reach out to him. You know him better, after all." He blows out a line of smoke.     "Twisting words... you're right... she is acting just like the thing that claimed to be her father..." he shakes his head. "Damn it all" he says, flicking more ash from the end of the stick. "But if we have to stop her, we have to... I won't let her go down that path for long. That's something Cael and I can agree on."
Jonathan Sims	Jon swallows, and nods. "I'll get in touch with Tim. He's been... busy, but..." He sighs, takes a drag on his cigarette, lets it out. "I'll get in touch," he repeats.     "I'm trying to... move on from that thing. What what it did. Trying not to wallow in my anger at John." He laughs, suddenly, and focuses on Chas, a bit bleary. "Was I always such an angry git, Chas? I mean, seriously, was I, back in uni?" He presses a hand to his chest. "I feel like there's this /burning/ inside me that I never realized was there, but now it's... it's there all the time. Threatening. Overwhelming. The world is /wrong/ and it makes me /furious/."
Chas Chandler	Chas regards Jon with a strange mixture of weighing and considering in his expression. "I wouldn't say you're irrationally angry, Jon" he replies. "Determined and driven to make things better for people... but that's not necessarily irrational. Or at least, not anymore irrational than anyone else who sees the writing on the wall." He shrugs and takes another puff on the cigarette.     "And... yeah, you've always had this drive in you. I think you were always aware of the writing, even if you didn't have the full scope of it." The smoke that comes out is a burst of grey cloud this time. "Now that you do... it's brought it out more and made it all the more clear. That's all."
Jonathan Sims	"That's not... if it was just a drive to do /right/, that'd be one thing. But I'm... /angry/. A lot. I take it out on people. I want to pummel John for everything. I gave Cael /so/ much shit for being afraid of you... because I was angry with Michael for he'd done. And I can't seem to get a handle on it. I..."     Jon frowns and turns away. "I killed a man, Chas. Two men, actually, but I /know/ one of them deserved what he got. The other..." He flexes the hand not holding the cigarette. "We were fighting. He was coming at me with an axe. I had a flashback to Michael taking my arm, and I just... got angry, and put so much magical force behind the blow that I snapped his neck with the uppercut."
Chas Chandler	Chas frowns at Jon's confession and sighs. "Oh... Jon..." Chas replies. "Is that what part of this is...?" he asks. Gesturing around his friend. "You have this... haze about you. I can't see it, but there's an odor to it. A sort of coppery odor. Almost like blood. You're riding the guilt your first kill of a human. Your first murder..."     He turns as well and puts a hand on Jon's back. He's killed people before. He's killed men who claimed to be holy men. He's killed victims of possession who couldn't be brought back from the control of the demon. He's done it before and he would likely do it again. "Would he have killed you if you didn't defend yourself?" he asks.     "That's what you have to weigh it against. Did you truly have the chance to pull back in the moment?" He shakes his head. "If I man came at me with an axe... bent on killing me..." A pause. "I don't think I would be able to hold back either. And I -know- that it likely wouldn't kill me even if he hit me." He frowns. "You have to weigh your actions against the consequences... and take account for every variable. If the situation balances out... you accept the pain of the action and understand that it was necessary. You can't let it tear you up inside."
Jonathan Sims	"That's just it, Chas. I don't /know/. I had held the other man that was there down with a command. If I can do that, shouldn't I work on getting better? And the man I judged... I burned him alive. Righteous vengeance. Cael thinks... Cael thinks it was wrong. That I shouldn't ask the gods to do that... that I should do it myself. But I just..."     Jon closes his eyes. "I'm a /doctor/, Chas. How can I... how do they expect me to do... /this/? To be /this/? A killer?"     They open their eyes and look down at their hands. "But then... maybe I'm not anymore. Maybe Cael /was/ the last person I helped, that way."
Chas Chandler	Chas gives his best friend a sympathetic look. "I don't think that... I think you have to find the balance... like everything for you. With some people you help them... you help me. Beyond the magical training I mean, all the reading you gave me? Understanding the reason behind the things I can do. The reasons for it. With others... you do your duty. To humanity. To the gods."     "You have a purpose that you have to fulfil Jon and that means utilizing the empowerment bestowed upon you to do what you must when you must..." he pauses and frowns. "What did this man you judged do? What was his crime?" he asks, curiosity lining his words as much as compassion does.
Jonathan Sims	Jon swallows, hard. "Oh, that's right. I... didn't tell you."     They don't respond right away. Instead, they finish their cigarette and pull out another as they start to walk through the garden, watching the moths that flutter around the topiaries. Once they've got the cigarette lit, they puff down through it about halfway before it's done.     "He shot Cael," he says finally, in a clipped, short tone. The tone he uses when he's trying to avoid putting emotion into words that, for him, are almost overwhelmingly emotional. "In the throat. She died."     Obviously she came back, so there must be more to the story, but he just stands there staring at a topiary, hands in his pockets, smoking the cigarette. Clearly he's not entirely at the 'talk about it and fix it phase' just yet.
Chas Chandler	Chas tries to view it from Jon's perspective. What would he do if someone shot Asariel? Would he go berserk? What would he do if she died? She'd come back... probably... maybe... but even so in the meantime... would he even be able to think about anything other than divine retribution. Divinve vengeance. He frowns. "Then he..." he shakes his head. Jon doesn't need his help to justify the action. He could do that himself when it was time, right now Jon needed his best friend to comisserate over the pain.     "That's terrible. I'm... I'm sorry, Jon" he says leaving his hand on their back. "I'm glad that she's okay now, but at the time... it must've been... " he shakes his head again, this time in understanding of the pain Jon must've experienced. Is still experiencing.
Jonathan Sims	"I couldn't heal her," Jon says, staring at one of the balls of light flitting about. "It was something so stupid, and simple, that I should've seen my way past it ages ago but I just hadn't bothered. I figured other people had it, healing-wise, you know? I didn't need to improve mine all that much. And then I... and then she..."     He curls in on himself and starts to sob. "She trusted me, Chas. She /trusted/ me, completely and utterly. She was so certain I'd fix it, and I... didn't. And she died in my arms. I was supposed to be there, and she trusted me, and I failed her. And then I killed two men."     The scent of blood that Chas has been getting off of Jon is strongest when he's talking about Cael's death. However guilty he feels about killing Munoz and Hernandez, he feels /more/ guilty over letting Cael die.
Chas Chandler	"Everyone's got some blind spots, Jon" Chas says softly as he moves in and wraps an arm around his friend's shoulders. "But that doesn't help when it's someone you love, huh?" he asks without expecting an aswer. "It's okay Jon... let it out, let it all out" he says softly, comfortingly.     There is a sense of calm and comfort that washes off of Chas, possibly just a facet of what he is or an expression of the man's emotions toward Jon and the desire to help his friend in his time of need. "She's safe now though... and alive and that's what's important, right?"
Jonathan Sims	"I'm a doctor," Jon repeats. "I should've... I should've been able to..." The cigarette's burning down in his hand, all but forgotten.     "She /trusts/ me, Chas. To... to guide her through this crazy world of magic, and be there for her, and save her, and help her, and... and what happens if I can't? If I fail? Sara only got there in time because Alya intervened and Alis took Cael's place, but... but if they hadn't... she'd be /gone/, and it'd be... it'd be my..."     Suddenly he pulls away from Chas, just a little, to actually crouch down on the ground and bury his face in his knees, wrapping his arms over his head like he's trying to protect himself from something. He's sobbing so hard he shakes visibly, but it's surprisingly quiet for all of that. He ought to be wailing, but the sound is muffled, like he's trying to keep anyone from hearing.
Chas Chandler	Chas kneels down next to Jon but doesn't wrap an arm around them this time. Even so, Jon can almost feel the confinement of the angelic wing that isn't there trying to shield them from the horrors of the world. "You can't save everyone Jon and Cael's an adult. She knows that there are risks involved in life and while I don't know any specifics, FBI agents are going to make enemies. Some of those enemies are going to have the bollocks to step up and try to get revenge."     He sighs. "You didn't put her in the place she was in. You didn't cause that man to shoot her and I'm sure if everything went bad, she'd have been happy that you were there with her at the end." He does place a comforting hand, on Jon's arm this time, and says in a calm but sympathetic voice full of his own pain and his own sadness for his friend. "People die, Jon. It's terrible and often it's too soon, but... in our life... people are going to die and there isn't much either of us can do about it."
Jonathan Sims	Jon shakes his head. "You don't... I /felt/ what she was feeling, Chas. She thought I should be able to heal her. /And she was right/. I should have! I /could/, now! Because I bothered to fucking /learn/ how!"     He shakes off the arm and stands, paces away. "I can't figure out how to help these people we tried to help the other day, either! I promised them I'd help them, told them I'm a psychiatrist, and... and what was even the /point/ of making that promise? I didn't lie to them, I /can't/ lie, but /I/ have no bloody clue how to help. We, SHIELD, sure, but me? Me, 'Doctor' Jonathan Sims? Not a fucking clue."     They toss the cigarette butt away and then run their hands through their hair, clearly frustrated.
Chas Chandler	Chas rises and stares at Jon for a moment. The cog wheels were turning around and around in his head. "Jon..." he says slowly. "Are you sure it's not that you're upset about killing those men... but that you're more upset that Cael died and you couldn't be the one to save her? Or even help her hold on long enough?" He sounds confused, like the worry and frustration doesn't make entire sense to him. But their life experiences haven't been anything like the doctor's.     He takes a step forward, but doesn't close the distance between them. "Is this more about your failing as a doctor in repsects to your failing as The Archivist?" It's a valid statement and not entirely unfounded based on what he's heard so far.
Jonathan Sims	Jon clenches their hands into fists as they stare at the garden without really seeing it. "It's not--" they start to snap.     Oh, but... /isn't/ it?     They swallow. "I told her once," they say slowly, "'If you were my last patient, it will have been worth it. Helping you, saving you... that's worth every penny I spent on my education.' She made me write it down. I put it on a scrip pad. Maybe the last one I'll ever write. She /framed/ the damn thing."     He's trembling. "I threw a copy my diploma in the fire at Lydia's rebirth ceremony. I gave up my practice. I barely correct people when they call me 'Mister' Sims."     He shakes his head. "I should have been able to heal Cael, and I didn't. I shouldn't have killed those men, and I did. I used to be a healer, but I really think that man died when Michael stabbed me in the chest. It seems like the warrior is all that's left." It's precisely the proper amount of melodrama for the man Chas met over a decade, though. /That/ man clearly came back from Duat.
Chas Chandler	Chas' expression is understanding as he stands apart from his friend. "Jon... the person that came back from the dead... is still that same person. Maybe the body is different, maybe the powers are a bit different. But you're still you. You'd be just as upset over this back then." He smiles softly. "In exactly the same fashion too."     He crosses the distances more and shakes his head. "You're still a healer, but you might need to learn a different method of going about it. I think... and this might just be what I am talking... what you did to that man who shot Cael... that was still healing, in a way. Healing others who he hurt, healing him by giving him a chance to atone in the next life, healing his family by removing what was probably a cancerous tumor of a human being from their life." He shrugs. "Different process, same result."
Jonathan Sims	Jon turns to glower at Chas. "S'pose you'd know, wouldn't you," he grumbles. "It's just... I'm trying to reconcile... how much have I been lying to myself, my whole life? The anger that welled up in me when I killed that man, if it's always been there... if I've /always/ been like this..."     He sticks his hands in his pockets, turning away again hunching his shoulders, and there's a sense, here in the Astral, of wings flaring as he does so, wrapping around him to protect him, even if it's only a flickering of multicolored light. It recontextualizes the movement--it's always seemed like a thing Jon did to make himself seem smaller, but what if he's really always been trying to mentally shield himself with wings he didn't know he was supposed to have?     "I don't want to be... you remember that cop that was convinced I'd killed someone? Daisy Tonner?" His hands flex a few times. "I don't want to be like her. Abusing my power, hurting people because I can. Telling myself it's okay because I'm cutting out a 'cancer.' I... I don't want to think... that's who I've /always/ been."
Chas Chandler	Chas frowns as he listens. When Jon's done he lets out a breath. "Look, Jon... you've always been a pretty... volatile bloke. You have opinions on how things should be. Stong ones." He shrugs. "Now you have power to make those opinions reality with your own hands." He shakes his head. "I don't think you're going to turn into a monster on a whim. People get pushed to those lengths." He pauses and realizes that his daughter might become one because of her actions. "They isolate themselves. They don't look for help when they have the opportunity they hole away and run off to do their own things without consultation or assistance."     He shakes his head. "I don't think you're that sort of person. You won't become a monster. But if you do..." he fixes Jon with a look that the Archivist can -feel- even if he's not looking at Chas. "The is the second time I'm saying this but it's just who I am now, I guess. You're my friend Jon. My best friend. I'll always be there for you if you need it. But if you turn to the wrong path and start killing for the wrong reason... or no reason at all?" He conjures a small sphere of blue-white light, one of those tiny suns. This one illuminates the garden as if it were mid-day and produces the blistering heat of summer centered on Chas himself. "If you go that way. Just know you won't go that way very far. Because I'll be there."
Jonathan Sims	Jon blinks away tears for a few moments, frowning down at the ground and sniffling. He scuffs his shoe through the path, watching the way the dirt moves--astral dirt, astral plants, astral night. None of this is physical, but it's all somehow more /real/ than the real world. Emotions linger in the air here, and even in the dim light, as Jon lets himself /feel/ what he's been holding at arm's length, the air around him becomes heavy and red, leaden gray, like clouds at sunset. Grief and guilt, hanging off of him.     Cael /died/. If not for near-literal divine intervention, he'd be mourning her right now. And he hasn't been letting himself really feel it, at all.     He doesn't crumple again. The weight just... settles on his shoulders like a shroud, the weight of the grief that he might be feeling in some other timeline, some other universe, where things had gone differently. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.     Then he turns and walks over to Chas, and wraps his arms around the man, burying his face in his friend's chest. "Thank you," he mumbles into the taller man's shirt. "Sounds daft, thanking you for saying you'll take me down if you need to, but..." A sniffle. "Thank you."
Chas Chandler	Chas winks out the small sun before Jon gets too close and wraps an arm around the man. "You're a good man, Jon. I know it's hard to see sometimes... but you are. I'd trust you at my side in anything and that's not something I say of everyone. Given the track record..." He smirks.     He looks down. "You're going to be okay" he says. "You'll get through this... and be better for it in the end. But you need to let yourself have it for a bit. Really -feel- what you need to feel. Don't run away from it." He pats Jon's back with strong, steady hands.
Jonathan Sims	Jon just goes ahead and cries for a couple of minutes, and while the heavy leaden grey hanging on them doesn't really lessen... the reddish tinge of guilt does, like the crying's removing a poison from him, emotionally. He takes long breaths, and then finally manages to pull himself together enough to step back.     He wipes at his eyes. "Given the track record, huh?" A pause. "Not much good being furious at John, is there? Next time he comes 'round he'll have some damn quip and excuse and..." A sigh. "Was he always so... unreliable? Was I really /that/ bad of a judge of character?"
Chas Chandler	Chas frowns. "Not always..." he says, looking aside over to clouds billowing up on the horizon. A storm? Maybe. "He's gotten worse of late. I think... I think what I did hurt him fundamentally. He didn't have the answer this time... and when he got his answer... he didn't appreciate it. So it was a bit too much for him in the end."     He shakes his head. "He doesn't do well when he can't con or trick his way out of a situation. Angels aren't exactly the easiest beings to trick, being implacable and eternal means you know every trick in the book, right?" He shrugs. "I'm content to let him sit at home with Meggan and just... do what he wants to do. I'm not going to chase after him anymore." He looks a bit sad, but there's a strength under that somber expression. "Sometimes even brothers grow apart."
Jonathan Sims	Jon snorts. "John's problem is he's doing it wrong. He doesn't understand angels, so he doesn't know how to trick them. It's /precisely/ that implacable eternal nature you use against them. Don't try to make them think you're more powerful--get them to underestimate you. Go under the radar." A pause. "Or, well, that's what worked for /Michael/. I suppose trying to trick, say, Uriel would be a different beast entirely. But I imagine Uriel would see right through John."     He shakes his head. "I think John's real problem is that he's not doing the con or the trick out of a /need/ to get something to happen, the way I was trying to convince the gods that a temple scribe gets to walk the Road of Kings in Duat. He's just trying to get out of paying his due for the power he summons up, most of the time. It was the same for this, too, really--instead of facing what he'd wrought, he tried to trick the angels and then left on holiday when it didn't work out."     He shakes his head, and sighs. "Well... you're probably right. I just..." He frowns.     "No. I'm going to let it go. Fuck it, and fuck him. If he comes 'round again I'll treat him with the caution he deserves. Until then, he's not worth wasting the energy worrying about."     A pause, as they stick their hands back in their pockets. "...You think Phoebe's going to be okay out there?"
Chas Chandler	Chas joins Jon in settling his hands in his pockets. He thinks for a moment and shakes his head. "No. But I'm not going to chase her either. She'll either be okay or she won't. There's not much middle ground with what she's trying to do." He looks back at Jon. "But my plan for her is the same as for you. If she becomes a monster. I'll ensure she doesn't stay one for long. That's the best I can do, as her dad, and as a comrade."     He shrugs a bit more into his light jacket. "You going to be okay?" he says to the Archivist. "Really? You were... pretty worked up. It's better now, I don't smell it as much around you, but... you sure you can move on and be better?"
Jonathan Sims	"Eventually, yeah," Jon says with a shrug. "I always am. Even the worst mistake I ever made... I finally have a chance to fix that. Things happen, and they hurt like hell, and we survive, and we find ways to keep going. Life is suffering, and suffering is an illusion caused by the fact that we hold on to things too tightly. But the tradeoff is the joy we get from loving."     He sighs, and looks around. "I mean... this is why I came back from Duat. The joy of friendship and the pain of loss, the hard work of building something hopefully lasting here with the JLD. /Life/. I wish Phoebe could see that. You don't get the good without the bad, the joy without the sorrow. You just... don't. That's life."     He glances over. "I need to tell you about Agnes sometime. And you need to meet her, of course." A smirk. "I mean... maybe you saw some of that, yeah? Maybe you know. But still."
Chas Chandler	Chas lets out another nonessential breath. "Yeah... maybe in time she'll come around. Then again, maybe she'll go away and find some of that herself. One can only hope for the best for the kids if they fly the nest, right?" He runs a hand through his hair.     At the comment about Agnes he nods. "I saw some but... a lot of the small details of my time up there are... hazy" he replies. "Probably part of the bargain. No releasing an angel that knows the secrets of creation loose on the world, right?" He smirks and nods solemnly. "I'd like that. I bet she's a good kid" he replies "And I look forward to meeting her sometime. For sure."
Jonathan Sims	Jon nods. "Yeah. I mean... Cael and I are moving in together. I'll have to invite you over something." A smirk. "Assuming Cael's even... okay with that."     He scrubs a hand through his hair. "Another time, though. Cael's waiting on me... we're having steak tonight, and she's probably already ordered it up. We've got packing to do."     He looks to Chas seriously. "Are you going to be okay? Really. You did all this," he gestures at Chas' form. "For her. Partly for her. And now... she's flown off. And I really am sorry that I didn't do better by her."
Chas Chandler	Chas turns and looks back toward the storm clouds gathering to the south. "Yeah... I think I will be" he says softly. "In time. Most things get better with time. This is just another one. Asa will help. She always does" he replies. "Have a good night Jon." He looks at the over-starred sky for a moment before turning back to Jon. "And don't beat yourself up too much. Not everything is on your shoulders."
Jonathan Sims	"Chas I am the avatar of the goddess of Balance and Order. Maybe it's not all on my shoulders, but I'm carrying the scales."     Jon grins while they say it, and turn to walk away.