"I didn't come here to antagonize you or blackmail you as you so eloquently put it."  In an instant she managed to destroy whatever good will he had for her minutes before.  Eric had always found Marion impossibly difficult to sympathize with when she was being herself.  The bursts of anger, profanity, and general lack of tact was painfully off-putting to his civilized, college educated perspective.  "But I'm starting to change my mind, and wondering why I came in to talk to you at all.  Just when I start to feel bad about how I treated you earlier you give me every reason to feel the opposite way."<em>I can't believe I was ever tempted to apologize to her.</em><br/><br/>"I'll leave you be.  If you want to have a serious discussion about your pending Forensics review, then you know where you can find me.  Otherwise I'll just send off the actual numbers, that is the truth of your irresponsibility, as has been requested of me by my boss.  I'm having a really hard time seeing any reason why I should do you a favor that could get me into trouble, earlier certainly is enough guilt to propel me in that direction.  You can complain about what I did all you like, but we both know that was next to nothing.  A small handprint on your face and a brief spike of pain doesn't even come close to amounting to anything of real concern."<br/><br/>Eric stood and made for the door, tuning out whatever else she had to say.  It was fairly easy to predict what the response would be anyway:  some curse-laid, aggressive complaining.  He decided to keep walking no matter what came out of her mouth, because her temper tantrums were never relevant.  Marion's first response was always anger, it wasn't until she got past that layer of seething emotion that she would actually commit real thought to the situation.  Instinct came before rationality; it was a fundamental part of both her investigative work and personality.