The midday sun was cloudy and the glare of the sky was distracting, after all, focus had never been one of her strong points. Only the piano had held her enraptured for any one time.

She felt to saunter, to turn back, to forget it. But on she pressed towards that Hotel where she had found Gideon long ago and where he had found her. She had a box of chocolates, to say sorry, she had been rude. Running off for months after their encounter, his friendship, running off...


She chewed on the inside of her mouth and then her gaze widened as she realised the Lanesborough was before her. She stood and stared up at its facade for a good while, lips parted as she whistled a tune faintly, lost in some daydream. It really was a beautiful hotel, wasn't it, all big and glorious and stately. Just like Giddy Up.

She grinned then and headed for the concierge and matre' d, checking her cloak with a tall narrow gent and then inclining her head at a bell boy, watching as he led the gold train behind him.

"You here for someone, Ma'am?", a negro attender asked, his arms folding behind him as he stared at her.

She returned the stare, windswept and wide eyed still, and self consciously pushed her hair from her face, leaving only a few wispy strands to fall at the front of her ear; paired with her girlish smile she was disarming.

"Mr Davidoff. I have not been here in quite some time"

Hearing the elevator's doors pring, she looked over her shoulder at the porter, narrowing her eyes a moment in thought.

"Is he expecting you, I will call him for you. Miss....?!"

Eyes traveled back to him, and she stepped closer to the counter, looking at the crisp white of his suit. The pressed silk tie, the shine of his cufflinks. She looked down to the chocolates as she replied with her name, and felt pitiful.

Here she was, a friend that had been there for her and to whom she had shaken off, trying to repay him and she'd not brought anything so fancy but chocolates?! Inside, some eyes rolled, and she retreated to a lounge as the gentleman phoned upstairs for Gideon.


As she seated herself she tossed the chocolates to her side and crossed her arms, looking dispondent and agitated. That perfect saturnine expression she wore so well. Her brows knitted in consternation and her legs crossed tightly. Was she so cheap as to think he'd really want to know her? How brief she was in his life.


An eyebrow arched as the attender beckoned her attentions. Those wandering, curious eyes.


"Did you say your name was Renee', Ma'am?"


She nodded.

"Just say Cricket. He'll know right away", she quipped with a smile, if unsure, and then he nodded and uncovered the mouth piece and placed the receiver back to his ear, and then she resumed her visual exploration around the foyer, fingering the rope at her wrist idly.

Her brows furrowed, her eyes dimming to a dark blue, almost that watercolour shade they came to when feeling the Hunger. Cricket turned away from the gentleman, as she stood straight, her eyes falling to the elevator doors. She bent over to pick up the chocolates, gripping them tight against her chest. Her nails brushed over the covering, the black ribbon that had been made into spirals, satiny and elegant, with scissors.


Turning back to the gentleman she shook her head, her face stern. Her eyes fell her feet and she felt overcome in an urge to snag the bellhopper, for his neck and that trolley and get a lift upstairs. But what good would that make, she wasn't that wild, feral kittykat anymore.


With a droll smile to the cardboard man, she wandered out onto the street, and immediately set about lighting a cigarette. Her pretty eyes and lovely peach and salmon toned skirt and shirt incongruous with the dark shadows to her gaze.