Now We're Reunited.

WHO: Grayson and Zoe.
WHEN: Evening.
WHERE: The streets and then a local diner.

The little café was unassuming. Small, privately owned, decent coffee and killer scones. The woman behind the counter lived upstairs and given how often Zoe Boothe stepped over the threshold, they were on good terms. It was a good place to sit, read, or simply sit and watch the citizens of Marquette pass on the street outside.

Zoe was doing just that -- people-watching. The cup of coffee in her hands was warm against her palms, but she paid it no mind. Her dark eyes were focused on the outside world, scanning over the thinning crowds of people. It was well past dinnertime; businessmen were rushing home to their families, and the good people of the world were beginning to close up shop.

It wouldn't be long. Unless he'd changed his route, she'd see him stroll by soon.

There were two phone numbers burning a hole in his wallet, and Grayson knew he really should have made use of them by now, one because the person behind the offer had told him there was no need to wait, and the other because the man had advised taking a few days before making the call. A few days had passed, and still he hadn't used either number. He didn't exactly have heavy snowfall to use as an excuse now either. In the case of the first number, it wasn't anything like nerves holding him back, rather wariness of packs and what their structure might be; he had been spoiled, for want of a better term, after being the leader to his last one and being anything else would just be such a step back, one that his wolf side wasn't content to accept. In the case of Doc with his job offer, Grayson was simply following the other man's advice.

Those numbers and the fact that he didn't have to work at Babylon tonight were the only things on his mind as he walked past one of the key points on his route home after a routine roam around the town in search of information that, on some level, he knew he wasn't going to find. Staying in one place when there were no leads seemed stupid, but he just couldn't afford to move on right now. No, if he wanted to keep hunting Liam, he had to settle down for a while, build up some more funds, a few alliances, and then start again.

Hands in his pockets, eyes on the path ahead of him, Grayson didn't even glance through the window as he passed the café.

Zoe found her patience rewarded before long. He hadn't changed much, but that was to be expected. He still carried himself with that same, easy confidence, and she still felt that undeniable pull. Pack. He was pack -- her pack. They'd been acquaintances, not close at all, but Grayson was all she had left.

The question was, did she want to follow him this time? They'd both been loners for awhile now, and that had a tendency to change a wolf. Was he still Grayson anymore? Questions and doubts and worries chased themselves around Zoe's mind, but before she could second guess herself, the female stood, abandoning her coffee altogether. As the male wolf passed by, she kept him in her sight and moved swiftly, easily, out the door and into the chill evening air. There was nothing rushed or suspicious about her movements, though she had to force herself to keep a calm pace. Besides, it probably wouldn't be long before she came to her senses and fell back. This was just silly of her...

The breeze worked in his stalker's favour, keeping Grayson ignorant of his stealthy companion. The male wolf kept his head down and his eyes forward, not really paying attention to that small flutter in his gut that was trying to tell him that something had changed, the surroundings had shifted in some way and there was something he needed to be aware of. Not even his instincts were sure what, yet, but it wouldn't take long. Wolves were alert creatures after all, by their very nature they were attentive and tuned in to their surroundings not only in order to hunt but to keep themselves and their pack safe. Nowadays, he only had one wolf to worry about, and that was himself.

Rounding a corner, he bit back a curse as the wind changed and hit him in the back, almost nudging him along. Even with being born and raised and Denver, there was still a part of him -- perhaps it was just the human part of him -- that would never get used to such nasty weather.

It was that same strong gust that made Zoe hang back, slowing her stride to let a few more pedestrians pass by. It was possible that Grayson still had her scent filed away somewhere in his memory, and given that she wasn't sure how his... solitude might have changed the former Alpha, she didn't want to run the risk of being caught just yet. Hell, she wasn't sure if she wanted Grayson to see her, period.

Doubts aside, she kept moving forward, keeping a good, measured length between her and her quarry. The steady stream of pedestrians was thinning as the dusk settled in and the wind picked up. Zoe's booted feet sank into the thin layer of snow on the ground, the sound of her steps muffled as the wind picked up again.

There would be more snow on the way, of that Grayson had no doubt, shrugging his jacket higher to put his collar more protectively around his neck and jaw, shielding it from the biting chill of the wind. That wind might have died down, but it didn't disappear altogether, and after a few more steps, Grayson's senses fired, telling him that more firmly that something wasn't right. Something was different. Someone was behind him. Following him.

Another corner lay up ahead, and Grayson took it casually, stilling in an alcove as soon as he rounded it, counting down the near-silent steps of his would-be pursuer until they too came around that bend. Only then did he move, snatching out a hand to grab their collar and switch their positions in one smooth, predatory motion, bringing himself away from the wall and putting the other person against it, a growl rising up his throat.

As soon as the wind changed, she should have dropped back. Turned around and made her way home because the anxiety gnawing away at her belly was almost too much to handle. Nonetheless, Zoe's feet carried her forward, but when her quarry ducked out of sight, she didn't think to pause or question it. Not until it was too late.

The curse came unbidden, a startled oath that she gasped when her back hit the cold brick. She heard his unmistakable rumble, felt it, too, all the while trying to ignore the sudden thunder of her heartbeat as it rushed through her head. Her smile was lopsided, nervous, but the dimples still pressed themselves into her cheeks.

"Hello Grayson."

The scent that finally registered in his brain froze him in his place, growl silenced, no doubt looking ridiculous, standing there holding her against the wall. Knowing he should count himself lucky that no one had passed by and misinterpreted what was going on between then, he let go of her jacket and stepped back, eyes still fixed on her face, expression a mixture of surprise and scepticism.

"Zoe?" Had his loner status finally gotten to him? Had the years spent without a pack finally pushed him too far and frayed his sanity past the point of no return? "Zoe Boothe?"

"Yeah," was her eloquent reply. Because Zoe was nothing if not witty. The female kept her back to the wall, seemingly casual in her stance as she tried to regulate her heartbeat. After god knows how long, she was finally looking into her Alpha's face, into his bright eyes. He'd tried so hard to keep their pack together, and that in itself was admirable. Plus, he seemed sane enough, if a little jumpy.

"You look good," she said finally. One hand lifted from her pocket to comb back through her loose brown hair. "I'm, ah, sorry if I freaked you out or anything."

Jumpy wasn't a bad word for it, but she really had taken him by surprise. How long had she been in town? Had she actually been following him? These were all questions that needed answers, those and more, but that could wait. There was still a part of him that wasn't sure Zoe was even really standing there, flesh and blood, before him. "No," he said. "No, you didn't--" He shook his head, eyes still on hers, like some stubborn instinct that wouldn't go away, the dominant wolf rising to the surface and asserting itself in the face of one of his pack who had crept back into his life.

"What are you doing here?"

She expected questions, and she would welcome them when the time came. Of course Grayson deserved answers -- she'd been tracking him for god knows how long now, something of an atypical scenario. "I... well, there's no casual way to say this -- I've been following you." Propriety dictated that she drop eye contact, which she did; she wanted no challenge from him, "After Denver, I tried to join on with other packs, but it wasn't the same. Picked up your trail awhile back and I just... stayed on it."

Zoe looked at him without meeting his eyes directly and her smile returned, a bare twitch of her lips. So they hadn't been the closest pair in the pack, more acquaintances than friends, but Grayson was still pack. It was still good to see him.

Naturally Grayson remembered Zoe well, and not only because wolves very rarely forgot scents that they had had the time to register and lock away in their minds, but because she was very close to his age. And then there was Lainey, the teenage wolf in the pack who had died after Liam had started causing rifts the way he had. Honestly, Grayson had never stopped blaming himself for that; she never should have been out there, chasing her brother and that other wolf, trying to keep them from arguing. If the pack had just been stable, she wouldn't have been in the street, she wouldn't have been hit.

"You-- you've been following me." It wasn't a question. "How long?" He was angry, yes, but not at Zoe. He was an Alpha wolf, and apparently he'd had someone on his tail for, potentially, months, without realising.

Zoe bit her lip. This was starting to look like less and less of a good idea. "I can't be certain. A month? Maybe two."

She watched the anger flicker across his face and the urge to shrink back against the wall was undeniably strong. Dammit. Dammit -- what had she expected? Some kind of happy reunion? She let out a sharp breath, the exhale visible in the cold air before her. "Grayson, I..." the female shook her head. "I'm sorry. This was obviously a mistake."

Her hands dug deep into her pockets and she turned away, moving back toward the main street. Stupid. Stupid, naïve, ridiculous. She should have just let him be.

The wolf inside shifted sharply as she turned to move away, and Grayson moved too, blocking her way as best he could without it coming across as aggressive or dominant. "No, wait, I--" He shook his head and sighed, gazing off to the right at nothing in particular for several long seconds before finding her face again. "It wasn't a mistake." She wasn't just any wolf, she was pack, one of those he had been responsible for. One of those he had failed.

"I'm glad you're all right." His voice had dropped, softer now, and when his eyes found hers there was an unquestionable relief, one hand lifting to touch to the side of her head, fingers grazing through her hair, and then he placed it at the base of her skull instead, softly, and pulled her against him in an embrace.

The physical contact was nothing short of a relief. Grayson's hand was warm on her skin, enough of a contrast to the frigid air that the hairs at the back of her neck prickled. She stepped into him, arms winding around his torso, over the thick fabric of his coat while her forehead came to rest on his shoulder. His scent surrounded her, enveloped her -- it wasn't just a hint on the breeze. He was here.

Zoe swallowed down the thick lump in her throat before she finally stepped back. She took both his hands in her own, squeezing gently. "You hungry?" she asked, smile soft.

In all the years he had been a lone wolf, he had tried to imagine what it would be like to be reunited with any member of his pack. Every time he'd made the attempt, it had stalled out, drying up and fading away. Now that he was faced with one, he didn't know what to say or do or think. But he was an Alpha, and dominant wolves couldn't show uncertainty or weakness in any way, even if it was just in the form of confusion or hesitation.

"Sure," he confirmed, nodding his head and finally feeling a smile on his face. "I could eat."

Zoe's smile widened, and she lifted a hand, her chilled palm pressing briefly, gently, against the Alpha male's cheek. "Come on," she prompted after a moment. "I guess we have a lot to catch up on, huh?"

When she turned back to the main street, she looped her arm through Grayson's and they fell into step together. The cold night air blew at their backs -- Zoe's loose hair lifted and fell with the wind, slipping across her face when she turned to smile at Grayson once again. The anxiety, the nervous buzz that had settled inside of her since Denver, it abated somewhat; she felt comfortable in her own skin again. It felt good.

They really did have a lot to catch up on. It had been years since Grayson had been with any wolves from his old pack and to be in the company of one again was going to take some getting used to, at least from the human side's point of view. The wolf was already settled with the idea, comfortable with the notion of finding its pack again, if only one member at a time. "So you've really been following me?" There was more amusement in his voice now that the shock had passed. True, he should have realised he was being followed, but at least it was someone like Zoe. Grayson was counting himself lucky for that.

She nodded. "Yeah. Don't ask me why, but... I mean, it's not like I had many other options, you know?"

The wind abated somewhat when they turned the corner. The diner in question was the standard 'greasy spoon', but it would be warm -- she saw the green-and-white awning up ahead. "I'm glad you're all right, too," Zoe told him.

His head cocked somewhat in confirmation of that point, Grayson finding he couldn't argue with her on that one. After the pack had been torn apart, the survivors hadn't exactly had many options. Part of him wanted to ask why she'd left Denver, why she'd run, why everyone had done so, but he didn't have it in him to threaten the stability of the reunion so soon into it.

He smiled, appreciative and still a little in shock. Of all the people to reappear in his life, he had to say that Zoe hadn't been expected. Why that was, he couldn't say. "So what have you been doing, other than following me around?" Something that couldn't have been easy, he knew. He'd moved around so much that she must have started getting dizzy.

Zoe gave a chuckle, smiling at Grayson as the two of them came up to the diner. She led the way in and settled into an out of the way booth, thankful that the place didn't seem to be packed at all. "Not a lot, really. Never got to settling anywhere."

Their waiter arrived, handing over two glasses of water and two menus. The female wolf flipped hers open, but kept her focus on Grayson. "What about you? How do you like it here?"

"It's tough to do after Denver," Grayson found himself saying, only realising afterwards that it carried a grim weight that he hadn't meant to inject into the conversation so soon after Zoe had revealed herself to him. Hoping to blow past it, he pushed his jacket further into the corner of the booth and settled the menu on the table, fully intending to skim it soon, but not quite yet. "This place is okay. A little strange, I've had some... 'interesting' encounters so far, but I don't have any complaints." A touch of a smile showed on his face, even reaching his eyes. "Yet."

Her mouth twitched upwards. "So there's something of a... community here?" she queried.

Of course, there had been other creatures in Denver; preternatural beasties of all shapes and sizes. Zoe had met even more after leaving pack territory, with most of the larger concentrations in the larger cities. Los Angeles, Chicago, NYC -- plenty of space for anyone or anything to hide out. She'd encountered a few supernaturals in Marquette, of course, but she didn't expect the creatures here to be quite as... colorful.

"You could say that. I've met other wolves," he said, though technically he had only met one and heard of another through the human he was involved with -- which reminded him, he still needed to call that number Sophie had given him -- but Zoe wouldn't really care about the specific numbers. "As for the others... well, let's just say it's interesting here. At least from what I can tell." When they had lived in Denver, the pack had kept their noses out of any other supernatural business and it had suited them well. Now that they were both lone wolves, they didn't have that option. They had to sniff around, as it were, get a feel for the lay of the land, and that meant potentially interacting with all kinds of critters. "I've heard some pretty strange stories too. Ghosts and gangs, that kind of thing. This town seems pretty eventful."

Zoe let a quiet whistle through her teeth. Nothing wrong with interaction across the species, but wow. For a town like Marquette? Color her impressed. Maybe she could do some serious sniffing about, now that her main target had been acquired. "And I thought Denver'd been wacked," she joked dully. Grief tightened somewhere in her belly, but she ignored it.

The waitress returned shortly, asking for food orders. Zoe had hardly glanced at the menu, but she ventured to ask for a double-bacon cheeseburger anyway. No reason a place like this couldn't oblige.

Grayson decided to cut out the hassle of browsing the menu for himself and ordered the same meal as Zoe, giving the waitress a smile before she headed off, leaving the two werewolves in peace again. Back to the conversation he went, switching from one focus to the other with ease, "Tell me about it." It didn't take long for the same waitress to bring their drinks, and then she was gone again, the male wolf not even watching her go, unlike a majority of the men in the diner. "Didn't take me long to get a job though, which is a good thing. I was running low on cash." Laughing quietly, he shrugged and picked up his soda.

She could definitely relate there. "Hmm," was her response, her lips quirking up around the end of her soda straw. "I always forget the importance of employment. Where do you work?"

More often than not, Zoe didn't stick around in one place long enough to warrant finding a "real" job. She would settle at some low-end restaurant or bar -- the kinds of places that didn't really keep track of its employees, which had worked well so far, but... maybe something a little more permanent would be in order. Zoe could see no reason for her to be leaving in the near future.

"I tend bar at one of the local clubs." Of course, here Grayson hit a sort of obstacle. He hadn't been working at Babylon all that long, and wasn't entirely sure of the policy when it came to discussing it with newcomers. But then, this was Zoe, one of his pack, a fellow wolf and someone he had once sworn to protect to his last breath, if need be. If there was some kind of rule, he was about to break it. "Babylon, in particular. I tend bar and sort of work security." 'Sort of' meaning that he had the authority to break up fights and tell people to leave, if it came down to that. As for his other 'employment', that was something that he wasn't about to discuss, at least not here, out in the open. There was a lot to Marquette that Zoe would have to learn, and Grayson wanted her to have all the facts, but he didn't want to put her at risk.

Babylon. Zoe'd heard that name before, along with the name of the woman who supposedly run the place. People talked, she listened and while the whole thing sounded quite fascinating, Zoe would be more than happy to learn about it all through second-hand accounts. For one thing, she didn't party that hard to begin with and, for another, Babylon sounded a bit... wild for her taste.

Nonetheless, she let out a low, impressed whistle through her teeth. "Yeesh. You have fun with that." Her mouth curved into a teasing half-smile as she continued, "I think I'll be looking for something a bit more quiet. Like the library."

It was sort of hard for a werewolf not to listen, what with the enhanced senses and all. But Grayson wouldn't blame Zoe for giving Babylon a wide berth. If it hadn't been for the offer of employment that he had seriously needed, then he likely would have steered clear after that initial visit; there was too much going on, and on top of that, too much mystery and confusion. The recent near-miss with the two men in the club had reminded Grayson of the dangers of having a whole array of supernaturals in one area.

"The library?" For some reason, he was having trouble picturing that, and he supposed his expression betrayed that fact, brows drawn and a faint smile. "Really?"

"What's wrong with the library?" She quirked an eyebrow at him. "I doubt I'll have to worry about getting clawed at. Or shot. Or shanked, or... "

Of course, first she had to go out and actually do some job hunting. She hadn't exactly been paying attention to the Marquette job market -- all of her attention had been focused on shadowing Grayson; trying to reconnect with the last bit of her pack. It would be nice to be able to have something that resembled a real life.

"Ah, see, but this is Marquette. Who knows what happens in the libraries around here?" If the other parts of the town were anything to go by, then there really was no way to judge just what would happen in somewhere seemingly as calm and peaceful as a library. "And besides, I like the smell of old books as much as the next guy, but working in a building full of them? You'll be sneezing your way through your shifts."

"It can't be that bad," she retorted with a grin. "Plus, it's quiet. And from what I understand, it's less likely I'll have to deal with drunks left and right."

Their food arrived, and Zoe paused long enough to pour ketchup over her fries. She heard her stomach grumbled, quiet but insistent, and that was enough to convince her that a few bites of burger couldn't hurt. No reason she couldn't multi task.

"So, really, I think the library would be the lesser of two evils." One eyebrow quirked upwards. "Unless you have any better ideas?"

Part of Grayson wanted to say that it was quiet, sure, but who knew when ghosts might pop up and make a mess of everything? He held his tongue, giving her a shrug in response to her remark about the library and no drunks. She had a point there, at least; Grayson didn't have that luxury, especially since alcohol was a key factor of his job and all. "You still drown your fries, I see," he said almost without even realising he was speaking at all, offering her a slight smirk after he thanked the waitress for delivering their food. "And I think the library is fine. Besides, it's not like there's a wide variety of employment options here in Marquette."

"So I've noticed. The small-town vibe is either going to do me some good or drive me totally batshit."

Zoe munched on a few of those drowned french fries and her eyes still smiled. Of course Grayson would remember all of her little quirks of habits. He wasn't Alpha for nothing -- he knew his pack, even if they hadn't been attached at the hip during their younger days. She swallowed and took up another fry, pointing it accusingly in Grayson's direction;

"And fries aren't fries without ketchup." She bit into her french fry to make her point.

Grayson laughed, he couldn't help himself, and nodded his head. "This town might just do that. Some of the stories I've heard are batshit enough in their own right." He wouldn't go into detail right now unless she prodded him for information. An Alpha provided, and even if they weren't technically a pack anymore -- you could hardly have a pack of two, not a real one -- that was his responsibility, to give her information, guidance or protection. Whatever she needed.