The coffee and chatter had done Iris some good. Her heightened nerves were soothed by chatter with Jewel, and her fatigue was smothered in a layer of caffeine. As dialogue unto conversation, Iris' orders of confections unto plates. Whether she wished to admit it or not, home-made meals of familiar treats and fingerfoods sang to her in a siren's sultry voice as the catching-ups and what-to-do's occurred. When the trio had finally concluded their conversation, Iris had finished two and a third cups of sugar-coffee and refilled a plate with delights once. When the time to split came, it seemed to arrive just in time to Iris.

"Oo, yeah, if you're headed that way I need to check on my house." She chimed to get her foot in the door with Chris, then waved goodbye to Jewel with only a hint of mischief in the twitch of her lips.

When she fell into the passenger's seat of the Cessna, there was no forthcoming tirade of dialogue. No torrent of words. No nervous chatter. Just the comfortable silence born of satiation and, perhaps, the false sense of confidence that everything was going to be okay. The preparations, take off, landing, and subsequent docking maneuvers were a blur to her. It wasn't until Chris was suddenly at her side, the door opening, his hand there for her to take that she realized just how deep into her own headspace she had fallen. She flashed a smile. She took his hand and pulled herself out and hopped down onto the dock. She took a few steps then turned and watched his near-instinctual movements of tying the ropes off. She smirked slowly.

"Damn, you make that look easy. Big strong hands like that? Stop me if you've heard this one before, but if you don't have anything going on tonight, a girl could use some help moving some furniture around. All my friends are coming in a few days later with the rest of the equipment and the research boat, so it's just little ol' Bunny on her lonesome tonight."

All of that flowed easily out of her lips as she fell into step beside him when he started moving towards the [i]Whispering Waves[/i], phone suddenly in hand as she opened it to check her messages. Without looking up from the device she continued.

"Mm. Yeah. You can call me Bunny. You're a cool guy. Look alive, swiftly walking woman at two o'clock. Definitely for you, I haven't been back long enough for anyone to come chasing me like that yet."