After the ordeal at the Mall and the discovery that the minstrel Tim had been murdered by parties unknown, Derek takes a shaken-up Erica back to his place.
"Are you hungry, Erica?" he asks. "I can toss together a stir-fry or some quick pasta thing pretty quick."
Erica nods and slowly sits down on the sofa. "Yes please, pasta would be nice." She glances around the apartvent. "People keep dying and getting attacked.. Derek, the Freehold's meant to be -safe-."
"I get a sense Tim wasn't really much connected to the Freehold," Derek says. Not that he'd know, since he tended to have little to do with most of the local changelings himself.
Derek starts some water boiling and starts looking through his pantry and fridge to see what they had to work with. Some frozen shrimp, angel hair pasta, a half-dozen roma tomatoes, lemon juice, olive oil, fresh basil, dried herbs, a half-brick of Parmesan... yep, things were good.
Derek continues as he sets about slicing up some of the tomatoes.
"In any case, it's meant to be safer than going it alone, and it is. Atlas going with me to check Tim's office... you distracting that cop... that sort of thing does make it safer for us. Working together, strength in numbers."
Erica nods slowly, rubbing her face. "I know, I know.. I'm just scared Derek.. what if they come after me for what we did st the mall, for looking into this, what if they come after -you-?" Erica's suddenly behind Derek, hugging him tightly. "I can't lose you, I won't let them take you away.." She rests her head against hs back. "Tim's definetely dead, I thought it might be a trick or something, but that cop saw his body, he said it was murder."
Derek puts down the knife and turns and holds Erica. "The amount of blood I saw in there, I'd be astounded to hear if he'd survived. As to someone coming after you, or me... well, we need to find out what this is all about so we know how likely a threat that is. Meanwhile, we stick by each other."
Erica nods. "Then tomorrow, I'll go to the library, try translating some of those runes, and you.. you need to make pasta." She grins playfulyl and steps back, having forgotten the fact that she was never too good with doing any sort of research.
She sinks down into a chair, in a good spot to be able to see Derek clearly.
"You can start doing the research here," Derek says, pointing to his computer. "While you're at it you can send copies of the pictures on here to the others." He sets his cell phone on the breakfast bar.
He goes back to preparing the pasta, and in fairly short order has it ready... a fairly light meal, nothing fancy, but it would do. He sets the table. "Wine?" he asks.
Erica looks at the computer, hiding a wince. It sits on the desk like a stocky beast, all hard corners and endless buttons, and when you wake it up.. it's even worse, the cell phone lay next to it, like a morsel that would soon be devoured by the beast, and Derek wanted -her- to feed it? Why hadn't she kept her mouth shut?
The thing would amuse itself at her failure to even do such a simple task, it would laugh and chatter and show her how stupid she was in front of Derek, she'd always hated them, always been afraid, so why why why..?
She tore her gaze away from it and looked to Derek, trying to smile brightly but looking a little lopsided. "Wine, yes, thank you Derek, I like wine." She actually preferred a nice juicy cocktail, but she kept that comment to herself, she hated even the idea of spoiling his evening.
"Wine it is, then." Derek opens a bottle of inexpensive-but-pretty-good whilte wine he'd picked up at a tasting event at a local store recently and pours two glasses. "Dinner is served. No salad, I'm afraid."
Noticing Erica's expression, he asks "So, what are you thinking about?" as he pulls out a chair for her at his small dining table.
"Oh, I just.. I was just thinking about how to go about doing that research." Erica gives a bubbly little laugh as she sits, quite stlited despite the effort she puts into it. "I'll live without salad, you know me and pasta, although I'd best be careful not to eat too much, I tend to get greedy.." She flashes a slightly more cheerful grin at Derek.
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