[i]'As simple as that?'[/i]

No, Bree wasn't been broken. She had not melted into tears nor slipped into gibbering madness. She was simply... Listening. Absorbing Ethan's every last word, letting the soothing tenor of his voice run over her far gentler than the river that had nearly drowned them.

Her knees were still pulled up to her chest, almost protectively. Her fingers cradled her head, rubbing slowly against her scalp, eyes staring sightlessly at the ground and the tops of her bare feet. These were the words she had waited to hear, for so long. So why did it all still feel... Incomplete? As if she were finally putting the very last pieces of a puzzle together, the picture meant to be forming before her very eyes - and yet pieces, vital pieces were still missing that stole away understanding, that marred the whole picture. But Bree didn't even know where to look for the missing pieces, nor even what questions to ask that might lead her to them. She couldn't escape the surreal feel of this entire conversation, despite all she had seen, experienced for herself - however impossible these things might be in the world she had known not even an hour ago.

Bree reeled, but she was not broken.

"So you stepped aside, and Victor took a bullet to the head and... I suppose you got away." There was no question in her voice, only a statement.

"It all sounds... Simple enough. Well, after accepting the possibility - reality, sorry. The reality that someone can actually do the things you can do in your head, with numbers. If you walked out of that casino, you'd have been dead. So... Victor or you. I can... I can understand that. Almost. You didn't know him." Bree blinked, slowly raising her gaze from her feet to the green-eyed man sitting across from her.

"You said I wasn't supposed to notice you. But I did. Do you know why, Ethan? Why I noticed you?" Bree waited several long, thoughtful moments before she continued.

"I noticed you Ethan because of all the people there in that casino - the wait staff, the bouncers, the dealers, the clients? You alone were like the eye of a storm. Calm, collected - not at all anxious, nervous, crying or shaking like a little girl." Bree laughed mirthlessly at the memory, her brow furrowing in concentration as she followed a far darker thought raised its ugly, serpentine head.

"All these things you see, or know or... Or calculate. Did you try to kill me then, Ethan?" As if they had a mind of their own, Bree's fingertips found the thick pink rope of scar on her chest, peeking over her bathing suit nearly to her throat.

"You saved my life today - I know that. But did you see or... Or calculate your numbers, or... Or think through all the chances, all the probabilities, the possibilities. Did you want me dead too, right next to Victor?"