No means no

Life with another person in the apartment was both a familiar treat and a situation in which he needed to readjust. Having someone to come home to after work, and to share a bed with, was the most comforting thing in the world after having lived alone and divorced for so long. But in that time, he had also grown used to being alone. There were habits he needed to fix or adjust for Lenn's sake and his own. There was a bit of an unspoken agreement that the two of them were quite fine with each other's bodies, but walking around in the nude like he occasionally now seemed more inappropriate than before. Also, he was more compelled to keep up his appearance even inside the home, now that he had a woman always in his presence.

There were some things, however, that he most definitely needed adjusting to that he had no precedence for. Lenn's paranoid assassin lifestyle made its presence known with only a few light touches here and there. Jacob had never seen so many guns in his house before, and hidden just about everywhere too. Then there were her paranoid habits that had served her well previously, but were now simply odd. He supposed that when she moved the bed away from the wall that she was adjusting it so she would not be caught off guard by... Wall bombs? He let it be.

Lately Jacob had noticed a small change in Lenn's behavior. She had always been a little on the jumpy side because of her previous life, but recently she had seemed more concerned and occupied with something. It could have been nothing, and it was entirely possible he was just seeing Lenn as she truly was now that he was with her nearly all the time. But he could spot something wrong a mile away, and he was not about to let it become something detrimental to their relationship.

As he opened the door to the apartment after a day at the Academy, he was set on bringing his concerns up. Letting that kind of stuff stew silently in a relationship was just begging for trouble.

Seeing Lenn, he immediately made a bee line for her and leaned over to kiss her cheek. At least she should know he still loved her before he brought up something too heavy.

"Hey there, love. How ya been today? No Photoshoot?"

"Ah! Right. You're gettin' time off now."

Sometimes it still surprised him that he was dating--literally, not technically--a lingerie model. There was one time a student attempted to pull the "aloof cool guy" act on him by insinuating that it really was not that big a deal since Jacob was not dating a Victoria's Secret model, or person of similar stature. But then Jacob brushed him off and simply directed him to a magazine with Lenn on the cover. Lenn was still a babe in lacy underthings, so what was the difference other than pay?

But there more pressing matters at hand. Jacob shrugged off his bag and leaned took a seat next to Lenn, moving the laptop out of the way for the moment. He put an arm around her and hugged her close.

"I finished those up at the Academy, just so I could be home with you."

The statement was true. However, he realized it was a bad segway into his real concern. His smile softened into a more concerned expression. He looked away from her for a moment, then forced himself to look her in the eye.

"But... *sigh* Lenn, I need to ask you something. Now, in the relatively short time we've been together, we've both opened up to each other. A lot."

There should have been no explaining just how intimate they both were with each other's lives and pasts.

"There's not much we can hide now. Lately, however, I've noticed that you've been... a little off. Like something is buggin' you or on your mind a lot, and sometimes you even seem distant."

He put his hand on her's.

"If there was something going on, you'd tell me, right?"

Jacob was momentarily taken aback by Lenn's extremely proper answer. When he had first met her, her accent had thrown him for a little bit of a loop considering how thick it could get sometimes. But he quickly became used to her accent and thought nothing of it since, until she gave her answer without the least bit of inflection. Only by hearing the contrast did he, for once, realize just how thick Lenn's accent could be. The feeling was quickly pushed to the side and he got his mind back on track.

Her answer was, frankly, unsatisfactory for him. When he came to that conclusion, Jacob started second guessing himself and wondering if he really was just being paranoid.

"Well, I ask because you just seem out of it lately. And not in your usual, looking-over-your-shoulder kind of way."

Lenn's usual paranoia had become familiar to Jacob, and he could hardly blame her considering everything she had gone through and what she was still experiencing.

"I really really don't want to put it this way, but it almost feels like you're doing something behind my back. Nothing unfaithful! I don't mean that. Like... Like... Hm."

Something suddenly occurred to him.

"Are you doing a job for... Uzume, or something? 'Cause I the feeling started after she came over last time. Is she blackmailing you?!"

The idea that Uzume was blackmailing Lenn for something was completely in the realm of possibility in Jacob's mind. Uzume was an intelligent and extremely perceptive woman who could have easily deduced Lenn's hidden life. For all he knew, Uzume knew before she even visited that one time, or something might have happened during that period where he had gone all drunk-girl-passed-out. Following that, he could definitely see Uzume coercing Lenn into doing some dirty work that even a private detective could not pull off.

Jacob was so ready to bang on Uzume's door and finally put his foot down about her messing around in his life with her detective bullshit. But Lenn's clarification put a pause on that notion.

"Magazines?"

He wondered what magazines had to do with Uzume, or anything. It was a strange mention that quickly got overshadowed by Lenn's confession. It was a realization that took all the anger and anxiety out of Jacob's system, to be replaced by concern.

"Dealing with Donovan? You mean, like..."

Jacob made a throat-slitting gesture.

"That kind of dealing-with? Alone? And you weren't going to tell me? W-Why?"

There was only the barest hint of accusation in his voice. For the most part, Jacob really just wanted to know the answers to his questions, and he really wanted Lenn to know that he was still on her side. He was just... confused.

After experiencing a shootout that may have nearly killed him, Jacob had an idea of what Lenn's world was like. Several armed men shooting up an entirely apartment complex just to get at her painted a good overall picture of the kind of stuff she had to deal with as an assassin. It was the underground world, the dark underbelly of society where violence was common and lives were cheap. However Jacob was not so uppity as to believe his experience even scratched the surface of what really went down in that world.

He also had an idea of what was weighing on Lenn's mind, especially after she touched his chest. Scooting even closer to her, Jacob hugged her comfortingly for a moment.

"I understand. But I also don't think you can just leave me out of this, Lenn. It's not like I don't know about your former life."

Jacob could just feel part of him warning him not to get involved. He ignored it.

"As much as you want to keep me away from all of this--and I understand why--we're both in this together now. Taking that bullet pretty much sealed the deal."

There was one thing he wanted to address directly, after confirming what Lenn was up to and her plans to rid her life of her dark past.

"And... And I gotta tell you, Lenn. I-I don't know how I feel about, erm, taking out Donovan. Isn't there a, y'know, better way?"

Perhaps it was naive of him to think that way. Lenn would certainly think so and he knew it. But killing just was not something Jacob was going to be silent about. In the back of his mind, he knew that it was probably going to be the only way to end Lenn's career as an assassin, and that killing was common to her so it would weight less on her mind. But he didn't want her to have one more death on her hands if she could avoid it, at the very least.