<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">One Week After Clinic Incident</span></span><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">Yvonne &amp; Luciano's first meeting,</span><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Reason: Fabiano's death-wish delivery</span><br/><br/><br/>Luciano pulled cotton wrap around the back of his right wrist four times, then over the area just above his thumb, and then across his palm three times again. He repeated the process three more times, making sure to wind it from the wrist to the top of his hand between the index and middle finger. He secured the wrap with a hook and attempted to flex his hand. He found himself clenching his teeth but managed to swallow his pain. Two bones in his hand were fractured and he was fortunate enough that the injured hand was not his dominant - his left.<br/><br/>The man who stood taller than his brother, winced again as he slowly slipped his arms through the sleeves of a white shirt, made of thin fabric, but expensive material. He buttoned up the shirt with one hand and reached out for his waistcoat, a blazer and the tie with the other. He opted for a three pieces<a class="postlink" href="http://i62.tinypic.com/2uoi9hw.jpg"><span style="color: #80BFBF">royal blue business suit</span></a>, worthy of whoever he was to meet. The man has always admired a balancing elegance and a classy style of quality. His meeting with this stranger was as important to him as the letter which rested on his brother's work desk. His mission today was to deliver the message to whom the letter may concern and make sure that he has done what his brother would have wanted to do. Before reaching out for his black winter greatcoat, he applied one spray of cologne to one wrist and one spray to his chest before exiting his brother's apartment house.<br/><br/>Luciano was a man of discretion and his tastes in scents was of an exquisite choice. He favored the very fresh, the very refreshing and the very light of beach like fragrances; with soft notes of ocean air, citrus, vetiver and mint.<br/><br/>A burst of warm air greeted his soul as he walked up the steps of the church. He took a quick glance at the name inked on the envelope and slowly parted his lips. The Mariner glanced quickly around him before venturing into God's sanctuary. Officer Yvonne Wójcik was the stranger he needed to meet. He had sent her an anonymous mail to her quarters as quickly as he could when he found out about the secrecy of the letter. He did not speak of the reason. From experience, Luciano had picked the best way to seek this person out in a face to face meeting, and instead of picking the time of the meeting himself, he mentioned in his letter that he shall await her arrival before the last glow of the sun disappears into the evening sky.<br/><br/>As he ventured deeper into the fortress of God with graceful quite steps, the man did not notice the presence of the woman with the golden hair, sitting in one of the front rows. He removed his coat and his strong-built, lithe form - clothed in a rich blue - came to stand about only two feet away from the stranger sitting to the left of his form.<br/><br/>The man found himself inhaling sharply. Grey eyes with hints of the colors of the sea lowered to the floor with a humble heart, and silently, Luciano crossed himself invoking the Trinity.<br/><br/>After he was done, he raised his head and focused his strong gaze on the statue of the Lady of Grace and her Son. A glow of complete serenity touched his pale, yet softly sun-kissed features as he silently demanded from God to grant him the courage to change the things he can and the patience to accept the things he cannot change.<br/>_____________________<br/><br/>Prayer. Prayer was always the answer. When Commander Yvonne Wojcik wanted guidance on her missions toward their results, she prayed it was swift. When the un-promoted officer needed patience, she prayed for those it was meant for. When the warrior woman took a team with her in accordance with her orders and she lost a soldier by following them, she prayed they had done what was required to gain his favor. When the woman of two wars, holy and domestic, found she was without the strength to move on, she prayed for more work. When the nephillim, Yvael of the War-Wounded Soul, found herself with doubt, she prayed unceasingly, willing it away with the power of faith and determination, and waited until her mind returned her confidence with or without the logical revelation or signs others might asked for.<br/><br/>The door opened and the woman ignored the aura of loyalty. It was a rare occurrence, but so was any aura in this place. After the last week, Yvonne found herself visiting the church frequently, as if being present would eventually cover the scars of the murdered there. Such things could never be healed, she knew. However, such things could make the foundations of its beliefs stronger, the proverbial thickened skin a mark of survival, not death, which protected the life within with twice the cells. This had not been on of those "things", but she needed it for herself so she came. She was defiant, and in the face of obstacles, Yvonne confronted them. When that failed, she defied with prayer.<br/><br/>His aura saddled alongside her. She looked up. What she saw was enough to fail her eyes and fill her with doubt, strength abandoned. It could not be. So she confronted herself first with the obstacle of fact - this could not be so it wasn't, and she would ascertain it's truth. The man's profile looked like him, but things were off here and there, and what she could see from this angle did not equate what one might see from another. Which meant she would inevitably have to get closer.<br/><br/>For now, she cataloged his differences - taller, larger, darker, broader, aged. Then she applied their meaning - different, inaccurate, unholy, and idiotic. The creature taking his place had spent so much energy hiding the truth of itself from its aura it missed the physical details that would give it away first. She could be impressed by it's capability, or disappointed in its lack of foresight.<br/><br/>Anger and disappointment often went hand-in-hand. She prayed for patience.<br/><br/>He sat in the pew before her and she slid to meet him, her head bowed over the back of the seat as she whispered into his ear, "You are unwelcome here and that form you cast erringly has expired. If you intend to cause anyone some sort of anguish, have faith, hellspawn, that you will have it, but you will have it all."<br/><br/>She did not moved her position, prepared for battle here and now, another scar to match the last one. He may have been fearful, he may have intended to protest, but he would have recognized her threat for the sincerity it had and second-guessed whatever plans brought him here. She stood, slowly, the air of menace wrapped about her as she walked out of her pew to block the exit of his own, one hand on the seatback with casual intimidation. "You were the one who sent me the note? Hmp," she shook her head with more disappointment, it ringing in her words.<br/>_____________________<br/><br/>Eyes burned on his neck, his back, but he did not turn around. After a traumatic experience serving in his battleship and the horror he laid eyes upon; horror unimaginable, unexplained which he sworn to take with him to the grave, Luciano found himself disconnecting from the world. His trans-Atlantic voyages since helped him learn how to recover, but at a very slower pace. With commitment, the immortal youth within his body had continued to battle the sense of safety and trust that were shattered after he came out of war victorious, but psychologically and emotionally injured beyond measure. Grief was an unknown territory for him; another red circle mark on his navigational map.<br/><br/>Fighting for his existence within a sad humanity had helped him develop willpower he never thought to possess in the past. Even to this day, he has not understood why he could see them.. The dead.<br/><br/>Upsetting memories of people old gone, would wake him in the cavernous dead of the night, sweating and shaking, while overwhelmed with deep ecstatic sensations throughout his body all at once. He had developed a great awareness of internal lights and colors, and upon placing his hand on a living creature he would feel the energy discharging, flowing through the bodies of these beings. It was something he could not explain nor could he bring himself to comprehend, and the more he tried to fight what his brain was developing, the more his brain wanted to unlock the fulness of life itself.<br/><br/>But he resisted the burning desire of ecstasy. That was one thing he excelled at. Resistance. Supreme excellence of mind and body control. He was a wise man, and a man of science and he thought he could probably bring a scientific explanation to all these mysterious events that simply happened to pour into his life without end.<br/><br/>It was only normal that he could feel the eyes of the female glaring at him from behind, yet he did not turn around. He clearly stated in his mail that if she was to arrive, that she needed to be the one to start a conversation with him first.<br/><br/>Silently his body tingled and extreme sensations of cold and heat moved through his lithe frame but he remained composed, producing an image of a man who was in complete control.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"You are unwelcome here and that form you cast erringly has expired. If you intend to cause anyone some sort of anguish, have faith, hellspawn, that you will have it, but you will have it all." </span><br/><br/>The first contact was made through an exchange of a relatively high degree of warmth, coated in a sensation of confusion from the other behind him. A small, amused smile came to touch his pink-hued lips as he turned his head silently to cast a glance at the woman from the corner of his eye. He thought to stand up as well, but she had blocked his entrance. The man stood anyway from his seat and turned his frame to face her completely. The Nazi regime was fanatical, crazy, delusional so it only made sense if this woman before him thought he was some creature from Hell. But, he was also a logical person and his logic assumed ... no ... it believed that it was only natural that the woman thought of him as someone who should not have been there. He wondered if his brother worked closely to this woman. He has not read the contents of the letter, somewhere secured inside his blazer's pocket. He respected whatever secrecy and privacy the words within the envelope contained.<br/><br/>The man parted his lips slowly and he allowed for a subtle hint of a warm smile to play on his lips, hoping it would disarm the woman from her state of confusion and lack of trust. Ironically enough, he did not trust anyone himself. He extend a hand towards the woman for a shake and dared to lock his gunmetal grey-blues on the blonde's face.<br/><br/>In a light accent and a perfect German, he began,<span style="font-style: italic">"Guten Tag, Frau Wójcik! Meine name ist Luciano Isidore Grazzienneli. Schön, Sie zu treffen. It was indeed me, who sent you the mail. I thank you for taking the time to come."</span>He did not wish to speak of his brother's letter yet. He was a little bit curious to know who exactly he was speaking to past the name mentioned on the envelope.<br/><br/><span style="font-size: 85%; line-height: 116%;">1- Good afternoon, Miss Woijcik! My name is ____. It is nice to meet you.</span><br/>_____________________<br/><br/>The way he looked at her... it was all wrong. Seeing his face turned towards her now, she found more inaccuracies and labeled them with Not-Him in bright, bold, mental lettering. When he spoke, she did the same, and when he held out his hand, the phrase was stamped across the entire vision of him, alerting her with a shock straight up her spine and her posture followed.<br/><br/>"And what is it you want of me, Grazzienneli?" Wojcik's tone was higher than she'd intended it, but not enough to be noticeable to a stranger. She took note and attended herself.<br/><br/>Keeping her breathing steady, the blonde woman turned her head toward the church door, taking in their surroundings again before she continued, calculating the chances of an intrusion. If this broke into a holy battle, she did not want innocents harmed. With the thought, her senses went out, finding others in the building, but most importantly, and distractingly, they entangled with his own.<br/><br/>Her face shot back, her sense retracted with the motion. They stared at each other a moment longer. From that short intimation, she knew he was no demon, but he wasn't exactly human either. A witch, perhaps. She had not collided auras since training them years, maybe centuries ago. Reaching them out, slowly, like a hesitant hand before a stray dog, the woman took care to avoid actually touching the shell of his energy, accounting for the waves coming off it instead, like heat from a fire. There was little she could read from it, and dropped her senses in vain.<br/><br/>"I do not know you, sir, though your face is familiar to me. If you are not a creature of the pit, then I ask again: what is it you want of me?"<br/>_____________________<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"And what is it you want of me, Grazzienneli?" </span><br/><br/>Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm. During that one moment they both fell silent and stared at each other a little bit longer, Lucianno saw femininity clothed in somber colors. He saw an intelligent mind through a pair of green irises; touched with hues of mermaid's tears, accented dark eyelashes would hold captive the beast within another. Her healthy complexion reminded him of the pale, yellow-undertone of the wavelengths of sunlight penetrating the clear ocean surface, yet her complexion spoke of withhold, pent up emotions she may not have been able to express.<br/><br/>Luciano paused his thoughts, refusing to allow more questions to occupy his mind. This woman portrayed the enemy of his believes and he was only here as a messenger.<br/><br/>But then, the confusion and irritation he could easily read on the woman's face, left him wondering just what exactly must have happened to her, or around her to channel negativity through behavior and words. He did not want to think about it too much, nor did he wish to study more of this woman.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"I do not know you, sir, though your face is familiar to me. If you are not a creature of the pit, then I ask again: what is it you want of me?" </span><br/><br/>When she refused to accept the hand shake. Lucianno cleared his throat and blinked a few times as his left hand reached inside his blazer to pull out an envelope. He passed the letter over to his injured right hand and he raised his eyes, looking at the woman with a distant, emotionless stare.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"Indeed, you do not know me. My face, perhaps familiar to you, as a result of a pair born at one birth. Fabiano is my brother, and I have found something he must have left behind, with your name on it."</span>The man's light-brown eyebrows slightly twitched into a frown.<span style="font-style: italic">"I do not know who you are but what I know of your title. I believe that I can trust you with this."</span>Luciano handed the letter with his injured hand that he had wrapped in cotton wrap bandages. He lowered his voice and continued. He could not mask the faint quiver in his vocals.<span style="font-style: italic">"I do not know if he worked with you. You could be the complete opposite for all I know."</span>A change of heart fell upon him as he tilted his head to the side and gazed at the woman out of the corner of his eye. He pulled the letter back towards his chest.<span style="font-style: italic">"Forgive me to ask, but is there anything that I need to know about your relationship with my deceased brother, Frau Wójcik?"</span><br/>_____________________<br/><br/>A twin. That might explain it. Strange that they looked so close without being identical. Fabiano must've kept it very well under wraps - twins were a favorite of Hitlers experimentalists.<br/><br/>"I do not know who you are but what I know of your title. I believe that I can trust you with this." He told her, lowered his voice as he handed her the letter. He could not mask the faint quiver in his vocals. "I do not know if he worked with you. You could be the complete opposite for all I know. Forgive me to ask, but is there anything that I need to know about your relationship with my deceased brother, Frau Wójcik?"<br/><br/>Yvonne hesitated as her hand hovered about the envelope. Did she want this distraction? She wore the black of mourning, but it wasn't evident on her as a color of frequent choice in any case. So could she describe their "relationship" as something that needed closure in the shape of a small note? Or that needed getting over in the past week which could be reopened as her own, personal papercut, only less literal? The woman shook her head and took the parchment. It was more an answer to herself than the inquirer, the brother of the man in question.<br/><br/>She stared at the thing in her hands. "I tried to help him once. That is all." She did not mention how she failed, and that it led to his death. Though she did not blame herself, she felt some abstract responsibility, but mostly a guiltless regret, the sensation of something left behind, unfinished, somehow forgotten without forgetting. It wasn't pleasant, only acceptable. Eventually deciding staring was too much information for this stranger, she tucked into her inner-breast pocket, the woman imagined a warmth that couldn't actually exist within the substance, but it comforted her all the same, and she returned her attention to the man with a "Thank you".<br/><br/>"I'm sorry," she continued, "I was unaware that he had a brother. I did work with him for the Cause, though we were not always eye-to-eye on such things. I frequent this church for my Heavenly Father - it is He, I serve. I was praying for your brother when you arrived. Please, make your peace with Him before you leave, as I do not have reason to believe Officer Fabiano had before his passing. If you should take anything from his death, be it that you should succeed where he failed. Aspire to greatness in His name. Apologies should this already be the case; you would be a greater man than your sibling, and he was one of few I could say... has left an impression with me in this life. For better or worse.<br/><br/>"Thank you for the letter. I will take my leave," and she turned to do just that.<br/>_____________________<br/><br/>Luciano pushed his hands into his pockets, bringing the fabric of the pants forward a little bit as he nodded his head in response to the words of condolence and consolation. Death was not the greatest loss in his life, but he feared the loss of what lived inside him as he lived it. They say that time heal the anguish of the wound, but the scars left behind can never be repaired.<br/><br/><br/>The woman was not talkative enough and that alone did not give him the answer he was looking for. He watched her turn around to depart with the letter, and he felt the weight of the task lifted off his shoulders. As much as he accepted young death as a possible fate for every soldier serving a cause, his brother had taken something away with him, leaving the sea Captain empty from the inside. His brain battled to come out with one simple reason to why would anyone want to assassinate his sibling.<br/><br/>What exactly had he done to deserve such an ending? He needed answers nonetheless.<br/><br/>If Fabiano had left an impression in this woman's life, perhaps she held the answers Luciano needed. He was not so sure as how to approach her about it, instead, he proceeded with an option that could play in his favor... maybe. He pulled out a black pen from inside his blazer's pocket and quickly wrote down his telephone number on an empty white wrapper of a lemon-lime shewing-gum. The digits did not form his personal contact information, but the number was of the place where he resided until his return to Italy.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"I understand that your thoughts are your own, but there is so much more I would need to ask you. You are the closest person I can think of that I know who worked with my brother."</span>Luciano looked hard at the woman with an intensity in his stare that spoke of a man who will not back away from any obstacle in his way and not until he has had his answers. He craved them, he needed them. He held out the note between an index and middle finger.<span style="font-style: italic">"Should you feel comfortable enough to speak with me, please do get in touch. But I shall be at the corner bar tonight after 21:00  if you have more to share with me about my brother, Frau ... Officer Wójcik. You have yourself a good day."</span>The man turned around checking the time on his watch, and flung his black trench coat casually on a left shoulder as he existed the church.