What she was hoping for was that the Royal would be quiet and calm and he would be sitting there, alone. She imagined him sitting at a table, one of the small ones, but the bar would be fine, too. Beyond that, she really hadn't thought about what she would say. Her chest felt tight and tingly and her insides felt numb, but really good, actually, at the same time. And she had a dull, throbbing headache, but that was from the other kind of trauma.

When she got there, the Royal was not quiet, it wasn't calm, and she didn't see him anywhere. Her arm twitched under the weight of the bag she was carrying. The bag was her buffer, her excuse. It had been her excuse to sit in his empty room on Lucy. Almost everything was gone. He didn't have much. As she packed up his weights and two stray pairs of underwear he would never miss, she hated the feeling of removing the last remnants of him from their home. But she didn't have any other excuse to see him.

"You're looking cute today, Dutch."

She turned to see Pree pouring her a shot with a smile. She looked down. Damn. She didn't want to look like she was trying to look cute.

"I must look better than I feel, then," she said, sliding onto the barstool and setting the bag on the floor.

"Well," he said, "You do look like you could use a good night's sleep."

She nodded and took a drink. "Is D'avin still staying here?"

She ignored his kittenish smile and raised brow. "He is."

"Is he here?"

His expression turned sympathetic. "Oh. No, he's on a warrant."

She swallowed. "By himself?"

"Didn't you hear? He's flying solo now."

"Oh." She shifted. "Well, I have some things for him, some of his things he left on Lucy."

Pree leaned forward and reached for the bag. "Oh, I'll give it to him."

Dutch pushed the bag away. "No, I…"

"What is it, the Leith Diamond?"

"No…. I just wanted to give it to him myself."

He paused, and clasped his hands in front of him. "It's worse than I thought."

"Pree -"

"What's happened, Dutch? What really happened?"

"You know what happened. He tried to… Jaeger tried to kill us."

"And?" He poured another shot. "And I don't mean the sex. Sex is just sex…. Unless there's more to it."

She downed the shot. "I don't know. I just feel so stupid."

"No," he said. "No shaming yourself, I won't allow it."

She smiled lightly. "It's not that. It's just," she sighed. "All that time D'avin was with us, it was like a clock was ticking. Finding Dr. Jaeger was his mission. And I didn't know what would happen after he found her."

"You thought he would leave?"

"I always thought he would leave." She stared into thin air, unfocused. "And the closer we got to finding her, the less ready I was to… have that happen."

Pree nodded. "That's nothing to feel stupid about."

"I just wanted to get him away from her. My judgement was so clouded. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have anticipated that he was in trouble, that we were all in danger - we knew too much - "

"No one could have anticipated that, Dutch."

"I think I could have."

"Dutch." He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on her until he locked eyes with him. "You did what you thought was right. A very bad person did something very wrong, and it was out of your control." He leaned back. "And D'avin's."

She nodded. "It's just hard."

"I know, honey." He squeezed her hand. "I'll tell you what. You go up to his room and wait for him to get back. He'll be happy to see you, believe me."