[b]Asil Marina[/b]

Your ... girlfriend? (Seriously, what are you two right now?) Is dangling about twenty feet up when you arrive, secured in a welder's harness. She pulls up her goggles to regard you and the silence stretches just long enough for you to take in her features. The brown hair tied up in a bun, the oil stained cheek. It's a different Isabelle from the one that you met up with earlier in her designer's pilot outfit and jacket. She doesn't seem surprised to see you, nor pleased. Nor much of anything really. Just ... bland? Impassive?

For a moment, you worry she's turned cold again - shutting you out like she had before. And you're just about to open your mouth to double down on your demand before she slowly nods. If you're right about how important the mech is to her, which you are, then you know what that little gesture truly means. Taking her eyes off you, she gestures to the workbenches and equipment that line the hangar as if to say "help yourself".

Do you often find yourself using someone else's tools? Or are you the kind of worker that has their own set, prized and kept under lock and key to stop some lazy co-worker from running off with your wrench instead of finding their own? What kind do you think Isabelle is?

Locating things to work with is a surprisingly easy task. Not just because everything is stored and filed away neatly (this [i]is [/i]Isabelle we're talking about here) but because the storage placement is incredibly intuitive to an engineer like you. The whole experience is like walking into someone's kitchen for the first time and finding that the knives are right where you'd keep them, were this your place. And [i]of course[/i] the cups are up here by the sink, and ... yes! The dishes [i]are [/i]over here! And the next thing you know you're fully kitted up in your own set of coveralls and toolbelt.

A few minutes with the hangar controls and you're dangling next to Isabelle at the top of Emberlight, working on your own section of the shoulder and re-laying the high-performance power lines from the CFD to the arm weaponry. Things are quiet beyond the occasional clank from your tools and the crack of the welder. Overall, the energy is very different from earlier - the fires that had burned hot and bright in that office have been replaced with something quieter and ... not cold ... but ... maybe dormant is the word.

The two hours pass quickly. Occasionally you bump into one another, or your hands touch as you pass each other tools. There's no talking beyond the task at hand, something in the atmosphere calls for quiet focus at this time. Just letting your presence and work speak for itself.

For her part, Isabelle lets hers talk plenty:

In the way she silently swings aside to make room for you up there. 

In the way she moves over, eyes casting past your shoulder, when you ask her how she wants the circuitry laid out in the left forearm.

In the way her gloves lay over yours when you need the extra strength to pull out a difficult access hatch.

In the way, when the time is up, that she rests her cheek on top of your head and entwines her hand with yours. A soft squeeze before she quietly turns and makes for her quarters.

Do you do anything throughout all this? Say any last words at the end? You can, although you don't need to.