Re: jack's room, x-mansion
[He could almost feel her over his shoulder. After a moment's silence, he put his finger on the glass.]
There. [He was pointing to the shadow of a bush at the edge of the manor grounds a hundred yards away. To a normal eye, even with the bright moonlight, there was nothing there but muddy darkness. His eye picked out a rabbit furiously digging a fresh burrow in the safety of the bush's tangled branches.
He pointed again, this time to the mid-level depths of one of the tall trees outside, just beginning to flush with green spring foliage. There was an owl in the boughs. He could see it preening and looking for prey, though the only sign of its existence to anyone else was the occasional flash of eyes and the motion of fluttering wings as it took off a moment later and dove toward the rabbit beneath the bush.
Jack dropped his hand into his lap, pressed the thumb of one hand between the knuckles of the other, feeling out something under the skin. He turned his head from the window, staring down at the sill.] You look different.
[His tone is careful, and it's obvious enough, the same way it was when he tried (and failed) not to poke holes in the researcher the day before. He's trying very hard at restraint, working at it, keeping a hold so tight there has to be a measure of fear in it. He doesn't seem relaxed or rested even after sleeping for the better part of a day. Now that she's closer, there is a tightness in each limb, a coiling.]
Did you think I wouldn't know who you were? [It's the longest sentence he's managed to string together since they found him, and it's obviously not without some effort. Definitively.] I know you.