"Oh, um, h-hello," Mayako said with a slight bow to Shana, "S-- sorry, um, I-- I was kind of, um . . . I-- I don't really know what happened, actually, b-but, um . . ."

Oh, wait.

"Hey!" Mayako squeaked in a sudden rise of pitch as she settled her attention upon Garv. "Y-- you really shouldn't be here right now!"

Whatever sternness she might have had would be completely lost, though, as she started out kind and respectful to one person, then switched gears to stern with the other person, practically in mid-sentence. Also because Mayako trying to sound stern really just made her voice squeaky and high pitched, and served only to make it sound like she was whining more than anything else.

Garv was greatly amused by the way Mayako suddenly switched gears...or tried to, anyway. It was hard to take her attempt to be authoritative seriously. "And...why shouldn't I be here?"

"Because you cause trouble wherever you go," Shanna muttered.

"Look, I said I wasn't going to cause trouble. You don't believe me, that's your issue." In a move that would surprise no one who knew him at all, Garv went to pour himself a drink to help him deal with the situation.

Also, to calm his nerves. Mayako made him a bit nervous, and not just because she'd suddenly sprouted wings the previous day. He had the nagging feeling there was something he was forgetting about her.

"Y-yeah!" Mayako chimed in meekly.

Which was a fairly weak way to start this off, sadly. Mayako felt a boiling in her stomach when she saw Garv pour himself a drink. Didn't he know there were children around here? How could he so casually pour himself a drink? Or even bring drinks here, in the first place!

"H-- hey, stop that!" Mayako took a step forward. Were she braver, she'd have tried to stop Garv from taking that drink. "This's a church. D-- do you have any idea how rude it is to drink that stuff in here? L-- let alone bring it in! A-- and-- and-- and there's children here, too!"

Not that this protest was going to do her any good or anything, but he was treading on her religious virtues, here. She had to say something, lest the memory of her father was going to haunt her for the rest of the night. The only reason she didn't say anything the last time she saw Garv drinking in a church was because he was already far too gone for scolding to matter.

"Eh, don't worry about that, I don't intend to share," Garv replied dismissively as he took a sip. He immediately felt a little better; he believed life in general was a little more tolerable when he had a drink in his hand.

"He's a lost cause." As much as she wanted to continue giving him a piece of her mind, however, she decided she really didn't want to be here right now. "Good luck with that," she stated as she passed Mayako on her way out the door.

"'Sides, even when there was a town here this was hardly a church. It's a testament to an old, dead religion, run by a man who was more of a historian than a preacher." He swirled his drink a bit, wishing he had some ice; he was always fond of the clinking noise. Made him feel classy.

"That doesn't matter," Mayako said bitterly, "I-- it's a matter of respect."

Shana was passing her by, and Mayako wanted to say something to her, but she was already pushed into a tirade by Garv. She just wasn't going to stand for this, not when it could still matter. If he drank too much, she'd just have no choice but to help him out, but then she couldn't give him a piece of her mind. Which Shana would actually probably hear, considering Mayako started talking just as she was leaving.

"I-- I can't understand why someone c-could ever just forget that a place used to be important to someone. Or-- or-- no, not forget-- care," Mayako continued, this time sounding a bit more stern--perhaps moderately more successful than before, "P-- people used to come to this place for e-enlightenment a-and they depended on it t-to help them, a-and you s-s-soil all those memories when you bring that stuff in here. I-- It's horrible."

"It's my memories of this place that make me need a drink," Garv murmured. But then he sighed and quickly downed the rest of his glass. "There, all done, alright?" He wasn't about to promise not to drink in there at all, especially when it was a room that he was a guest in by himself, but he'd at least make sure to be more careful about drinking in front of others.

"You're a funny girl, you know that?" he said as he put his glass away. "You see me again and what bothers you is that I drink in churches." It actually made him chuckle a little; as much as he disliked being browbeat by a teenager, he wondered if she perhaps had more guts than he'd thought.

Mayako sighed. Honestly, he should've just poured the drink outside, but if this was as far as he was willing to bend, then so be it. Mayako was willing to accept a little bit of respect for these sorts of hallowed grounds, even if it was only the tiniest amount.

She folded her arms over her chest and frowned at Garv. She didn't much like him talking to her like that, either. She didn't like a lot of things about Garv, actually, and had a sneaking suspicion that Shana had roughly the same problems with him. Which made Mayako wonder if he also held Shana at knife point the first time he met her, too. That was horrible. If that's how Garv treated every woman he met, then he had to be the worst person in the world.

"S-- seriously, though," Mayako stammered, "Y-- your son will hurt you i-if he sees you a-again. Or . . . or worse, a-and I really, really don't want that to happen."

The remark about Fenix as Garv's son was stated rather casually, too, as if it were common knowledge between she and Garv. Mayako didn't know Garv had probably been in a great enough stupor to completely forget he ever said that.

Garv froze up immediately, stiffening enough that if the drink he'd just finished hadn't granted his cheeks a nice red tint he could've been mistaken for a corpse. He went through his head, wondering if this was a lucky guess if she could have possibly known. He hadn't said anything when he'd...tried to coerce her, and after that he'd gone to the church in Hillcrest (a nice abandoned spot) and...

"Aww...shit," he concluded. He hoped she wasn't also uptight about swearing in a church.

It suddenly occurred to him that Mayako hadn't just barged into someone's room for the hell of it, which meant she knew he was in here, which meant sound was carrying farther than he wanted.

"Keep that down, alright?" he whispered. "I'm trying to keep a low profile to avoid that, and that's going to be tough if the whole bloody world knows who I am."

Mayako put her hands on her hips. She didn't consciously know that Garv was effectively recoiling from her, but his reaction to her at least told her as much that she could be a little more confident in scolding him. She wasn't going to hold this information over his head, though. She was above doing that. Blackmail was underhanded and horrible, and she'd have never wanted someone to do that to her. Treat others like you'd prefer to be treated and whatnot.

"Well, you're doing a really bad job at that," Mayako replied, but quieter as Garv's request.

Which was the honest truth. If this was Garv's way of keeping a low profile, she'd have hated to see him when he didn't have a reason to hide anything.

"I-- I mean, seriously," she intoned dramatically, albeit quietly, "Y-- you held me at knifepoint! A-- and he drew a crossbow on you! I-if he sees you, h-he's going to want to fight you to k-kick you out, o-or l-like I said, worse. H-he didn't forget about that either, you know."

"Yeah, I know, I know..."

He wasn't quite sure what to make of her; was she really so kind-hearted as to be worried about him, or was this a subtle way of suggested that she could make things difficult for him at any time she wished?

"Look, for what it's worth I was just trying to jog your memory, never intended to hurt you."

At the time he'd been pretty desperate for a lead, though now he found himself not much caring for the investigation any more. Besides, the name she'd eventually given him had been a bust anyway--he couldn't find anyone who'd heard of anything like the "crespeculum" or whatever she'd gone on about.

"And don't you worry about me, I'm not an easy guy to hurt, even with someone like...him."

Regardless of what he was trying to do when he held her at knife point, Mayako still felt a little bitter about that. She'd already been through a lot by that point, and the last thing she needed was to have a knife to her throat. Maybe it'd have been better a little while later, after all the dust had settled in her life and whatnot. Then she might not have felt bitter about it. Forgiveness would be had and the like. As is, while she was more than willing to forgive Garv, she was also more than willing to leer at him a few times before she did that openly.

"A-anyways . . . I-- I just . . . don't want it to even be a possibility," Mayako remarked with a slight pout of her lips, "I hate seeing people get hurt. I-- I mean, I worked in the clinic for a reason, you know? And if you and he got into it, s-someone would get hurt, a-and that'd be horrible."

Regardless of if Garv could handle himself or not, someone would have been hurt with that confrontation. Either Fenix or Garv, or maybe even an innocent bystander. There were too many variables, too many risks. Mayako just didn't want any of those risks to exist.

"So . . . really, y-you shouldn't be here. A-and you shouldn't follow us anymore, either," she added the last part with a stern look of scrutiny.

Garv smiled a bit at that last part. "I couldn't have been following you, right? I got here first." Of course, a single fit man could travel much quicker than three weak and/or injured teenagers so there was no saying it wasn't possible...

"Look...I appreciate the concern, love, I really do, but I did have my reasons for coming here. Until I've sorted some things out, I'm staying." He was unusually sober sounding, both in tone and...well, in the more obvious way. "I won't let him hurt me, and I don't intend to hurt him, so you can stop worrying your pretty little head over it."

He sat down on his bed, preparing to relax for a bit, and made a shooing motion to her. "Off with you, now. Ask someone to let you into the kitchen; if I was a betting man--and actually, I am a betting man--I'd wager you've got to starving after that little display of yours yesterday."

"If you know Mr. Black, then you knew where he was going to go," Mayako remarked with a sigh.

That venue of conversation was probably a lost cause. She had a feeling Garv was following her and Fenix, and that he knew where they were going to stop. He lived here before, right? Then he knew where Fenix was probably headed. Coincidences like these just didn't happen with any grave regularity. That train of thought came to an abrupt halt when he mentioned the "display" from yesterday.

"W-- wait--" the color drained from her face, "Y-- you saw . . .?"

Then she trailed off, shook her head, and hugged her arms tighter to her chest. Of course he saw. Everyone saw. How could they not? She had run out of the church screaming her head off. Of course people were going to see. That didn't make her any less self conscious about the issue. On one hand, she could have asked Garv about it. On the other, though, she was much more curious as to why he was here. Maybe if that issue could be solved, then maybe she could successfully shoo him out of this place and reduce the risk of her having to perform any medical procedures in the near future.

With another shake of her head, she spoke up, this time meeker and much less confident. The pain her head skull was probably a bit more evident in her voice. "A-- anyways-- what are you doing here, then? I-if you're not following us, that is."

Garv was a little hesitant to divulge anything to this girl; he hardly knew her, and what he did know suggested she was more than a little odd. But she already had his biggest secret in her back pocket, so it wasn't like she didn't already have the potential to do him damage.

"That's the problem, love...I don't know him. Not at all. Guess I thought if I came back here I'd figure something out."

But all he'd found so far were a bunch of kids and painful memories. This was kind of a new thing for him, and he didn't know how much time he'd give it, but he wasn't ready to leave just yet.

"'Sides, all I was doing before was chasing ghosts it seems, so it's not like I'm missing out on anything by being here."

For a second, Mayako simply stared and blinked confusedly.

"Wait . . ." she trailed off.

This presented a problem and a half. Mayako was thinking that if she knew what Garv was after, she could help him with it over the next few hours and have him out of here by sun-up. No problems would then be had. It was a bit enabling, of course, but she had to do something to make sure he didn't end up causing some serious trouble with anyone around here. The problem was that it almost seemed like Garv was after something sweet and heartwarming.

"Y-you're here to learn about him?"

Deep down on the inside (actually, not really all that deep at all, she just didn't want to admit it), Mayako was hoping that it was a yes, because difficult as it may be to help him, that'd probably redeem Garv in her eyes.