[color=#ddd1be][i]Droplets of salt water rolled down her cheeks, perhaps in a race to see which eye would be the one to ruin her blouse first. So far, the right one was winning.

But Janetta wasn't paying her tears any attention. No - she wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of acknowledgement. Her jaw was locked and her teeth were pushed against each other as she stared straight ahead, a stony expression plastered on her face. Even as those around her lost their composure and clung to each other for support, Jan kept her piercing gaze on the lacquered wooden coffin that was being lowered down into the ground just a few feet away from her.

Her mother, cold and seemingly at peace, being lowered into the ground just a few feet away from her.

Althea Pryce, the woman who's strength Jan had modeled her own after for the entirety of her twenty-eight year old life, was finally gone, beaten by an unfairly strong cancer that had been brewing inside of her for five years. Granted, Janetta was glad that her days of suffering were over. But that didn't make the sting of loss any less harsh.

As the ceremony came to a close and people began approaching her with a gentle hand on her shoulder or a squeeze of her tricep, Jan quickly dragged her hands across her face, wiping away the traces of a weakness. When she turned and almost on auto-pilot began reciprocating the hugs that were being offered her, and nodding at the murmurs of condolences in her ears, she could still feel the wetness on her fingertips. They were burning against her skin, her body's betrayal against her will. And as she left the site of her mother's grave, she silently promised herself that this would be the last time.[/i]
[hr]It was all over, and yet Janetta was still shaking from the episode. All sensory input was resting just at the edges of her attention, on pause as she felt Ryobi's arms slip around her. Normally, she would have shied away from this sort of affection from embarrassment; but he had seen her like this, practically bare and naked, many other times and in greatly different situations. Now he was simply seeing her bare and naked in a different way, and while she would have preferred the whole thing not to have happened, she had no choice but to let it.

With her face buried into the crook of his neck, Jan allowed herself a few moments of weakness, soft whimpers muffled against the familiar scent of Ito's skin. Her legs were pressed together tightly and she felt small - for a fleeting moment, she wanted to completely disappear into the warmth of his embrace. He said nothing, and she was grateful for his silence. Any words might have shattered her already fractured sense of pride. The hug was more than enough.

After a few moments, Jan had calmed down. Her breathing slowed, and she was able to regain a coherent train of thought; the first being that Ryobi had just saved her life and her sanity. A version of herself from yesterday would have kicked herself for becoming a damsel in distress. But Janetta was not a bitch, and she knew gratitude when it was owed. She shifted her face so that her lips were closer to his earlobe, and she sighed. "Thank you."

The two of them shifted apart slightly, and it was only then that Janetta realized there was another presence in the doorway. She would have started if not for her quick recognition that it was only Kitt. Poor, innocent Kitt, who had probably experienced plenty of her firsts within the past five minutes or so. The thought brought a bubble of laughter from somewhere within her, and again she hid herself into Ryobi's form, moving her torso so that her very exposed chest was a little less visible tucked into him. Crossing her legs, she shook her head and once again chuckled at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. 

"You should have told me you'd brought a friend to watch," she joked, voice again muffled against his shirt collar. "I would have put on a better show." Her defense mechanisms were already back online, patching up her momentary vulnerability with her usual sarcasm, and she knew Ito would understand that.
[/color]

Kitt, who had followed Officer Ito to the doorway, was in shock. She knew this one, knew that Timothy Ginhearst was probably doing something explicit with the Warden behind the closed door. She also knew that Ryobi had no other choice but to take him down by way of the knife in his hand - but she had not been prepared to see just how gruesome it would be. Kitt had never seen blood, nor was she expecting the crazed look to still be alive on Ginhearst's positively dead face. How was that possible?

And there was the blood. So much of it. It was on the desk, pooled on the floor around Ginhearst's body, on Warden Pryce. [i]Warden Pryce[/i], who was very much indecent and very much in need of help. As soon as the prisoner had dropped to the floor and Ryobi had gone to her, Kitt had turned around and taken a step out of the room, torn between wanting to give them some privacy but needing to act on her duties and see if she was alright. She tried to pass it off as if she was simply doing something logical like keeping a look out for them, when in reality, she was as uncomfortable as a receptionist could be.

"Um, Warden Pryce - would you like me to call a medbot to see about you? That wound in your head needs attention," Kitt stated as calmly as she could. It was true; Ryobi's neck was a mess of tears and dried blood. She had never seen the officers this intimate with each other, but maybe now was an exception. So, still unsure of what to do with herself, she figured Officer Ito might do best to handle this with a human touch. She added, "I also spotted the keys for the cuffs on the floor near the prisoner's head, Officer Ito."