A Homecoming of Sorts (Permission; T? M for language? Lord knows...)

"Generally, at the start," she said idly, eyes twinkling as she looked at him through the corners before redirecting her attention to the road, "You'll be both thrilled and disappointed in my ever-amassing book collection, as always. See? That's a start."

"More?" Liam asked incredulously, eyes diverting from the road to offer her an amused and stunned glance. "I do hope you had that second tier installed in the study or we'll be piling books on the dining room table by the year's end. Then you start using piles as rudimentary side tables and it only goes downhill from there..."

A laugh escaped her, her head shaking. "you know me better than to ever think I would use books as furniture." shrugging, she relaxed, lounging in the seat with her eyes closed. "Took out the other guest bedroom, actually. We didn't need two of them, anyway. So... That's that. "

"It was to suggest that we just may run out of room eventually," the weapon teased, restless eyes taking in the surrounding landscape, reveling in the foreign and the familiar. "So, how uh...how has she been? Crystal." He offered the question with a thick veil of casualness, though her name caught on his tongue, falling away tainted by a nervous tone.

Evelyn offered a gentle, playful laugh in response, enough familiarity to it to provide an ease, a lack of sarcasm or teasing to it to prevent further worry. "She's well. Had the smallest scare at one point, but it turned out to just be another batch of bronchitis. That's the worst, as far as her health is concerned." She cracked her knuckles before her, fingers woven together and wrists bent back. "Otherwise, she spends most of her time with art or paperwork. She hasn't been out much in a long while."

"I see," Liam murmured, his words trailing off. "Evie, what ah...what do you think of Crystal?" He fell silent, the sentence clipped as though he had attempted to smother the intent behind it.

"You know damn well what I think," she said, arms behind her head as she lounged back, dark sunglasses over her closed eyes. "The question is, why are you asking about the little angel?"

"I suppose I just," the weapon began, words trailing away as he chewed lightly at his lip. "I had a lot of time to myself across the pond and a lot of that circled back to what I want to do with my life and who is vital to it. I need to start moving forward and preparing for the future and I just wanted to know where you stood if I wanted Crystal to be a part of it."