"So, uh," Nathan starts, unsure if what he was about to say would make anybody uncomfortable, which is very rare of him, typically not caring for what others might think of his cold and un-filtered mouth. He still had a long way to go from his high-ranked days as a Judge in the Civil Protection. "Where are these missing soldiers, and—" He trails off briefly, scratching at the back of his neck, "Shit." He'd curse then, "Sorry, what were their names again?" He feels like a complete prick for even asking that again, and he'd see that come to light. Still, he remains unwilling to be anxious, eyes looking on and not attempting to retreat by looking at the nearest wall or object behind the two women in front of him.

Aurora Chamberlain, rather, Aurora Daniels, as she'd still demand to be addressed by, radiates a look that only screams aggitation, her crystaline blue eyes staring coldly before her impassiveness has her stare trickling to the floor, like she's trying to not get too offstandish. He didn't know, she knew that, her attitudes shifted quite radically since a few months back. She can't think about it, she can't feel anymore; at least not right now. Nobody that's left can.

"Save your strength!" North had pleaded, "We need it more than ever!"

Speak of the devil itself. Evangelion they'd call her, the leader, rather, Maria North herself, even she in all her brooding and class is seen twitching slightly in the wrist of her right-hand, body language growing temporarily rigid by a thought that's only fleeting due to her constant hopeful outlook shining through all the cracks of her mind. Still, her twitch is noticeable, but temporary, it's a rather bad habit she's picked up on since, well, the event that occured. Even her own green orbs let off a faltered gaze. Is it shame? Is it failure she feels? Nathan's unsure, he was never good at noting people's behaviours like Arya. Although, he understood Maria's emotion of failure, for the last three years of his life, that's all he, Nathan Alexander had felt.

Arya sees her allies, her closest friends rather, how tender and uncomfortable they seem still, and her body lightly starts to slide closer to Nathan's in a gesture of ending this rough conversation. Where was she when they needed her most? Arya feels the unswallowable taste of failure too. It's an aquired one, one she's grown accustomed to feel now and again. Certain duties had her side-tracked, but should that not had taken place, she never would have come across Nathan or Max, her closest allies to date. That too in itself was another rarity. Rarity seemed to becoming more of a common prospect nowadays.

Regardless.

It's a sore subject.

"Maria Pert," North reminds him, Arya tips her chin up at that suddenly, but just the mere sound of her name on Maria's lips leaves a bitter taste on her tongue, not of spite, but of a radiating pain that still continues to ripple every now and then in North's chest everytime she has to rise, and not find Marie's face, among the other familiar ones, which are now lost and off who-knows where. She's failed her. North depises failure. She's crafty, swift, intelligent, she has faith her and Pacer remained together. Blinking, North shuffles her fingers through more stacked paperwork a couple feet high off her desk. Notes of everything few and far between of research, maps, lists of cache items and drops, and resistance attacks which were currently being thought out.

"And, Pacer Daniels," North doesn't want to catch the next probable look of indifference or sheer agony on Aurora's face, much like Aurora, Walker, Jeremy, or any of the close others who managed to make it didn't want to see the look on Maria's other when Marie was brought into conversation. Begrudingly, she'd choose to speak of it, albeit in short sentances and brief statements. Everybody in that room held regrets, doubt; an invisible thick cloud looming over each of their own individual heads.

Arya's own stance has grown stiffened, movements much now like a viscous sap as she'd awkwardly try to turn to Nathan and slide her hand on his shoulder. "They've been gone for quite some time," She'd elaborate, "But we're being hopeful, attempting to be." At the latter of that sentence, it sort of fades out into an obscured whisper, falling on deaf ears.

North's hand casually skims over the necklace Pert gave her, and it's a moment Nathan could only count at a reprieve from her strength and not directly addressing the situation. Physical shifts like that are what stood out to him, he noted them, but North's eyes are still looking ahead, straight, her face still holding the same natural, poised and attentive look. No wonder she could lead, she's learnt to master the art of masking overwhelming emotion and unbearable suffering much like everybody else in this godforsaken world that's come to be.

"You still wear it though." Nathan points out, again, no-filter, which may very well be the death of him some day, before his own green eyes, although less stark-green in shade compared to Maria's look to Aurora, he noticed the large diamong on her finger, the white gold band, cleaned and shined like she still took care of it. What the hell did these people go through?

"So do you," Nathan shrugged with a shoulder, "You really are all about hope, aren't you?" A little scoffed sigh of surprise left his slightly chapped lips, "Arya wasn't kidding about you all." She really wasn't. Even through all their own struggle, they still woke up and went to work, Nathan could find respect in that, having been in a similar line of duty himself. Arya chews the inside of her lip after hearing that, even she knew people had limits, North lately being on her own edge, given assembling more troops and planning cache drops, Aurora stressed enough fighting in the black market and re-planting her foot as a domineer alongside Walker and Jeremy.

"They were family," Maria explains, and that's that, Aurora still holds the same look of completely disinterest as she'd grab her MK16 rifle off the table, checking the magazine, "I've got business to do, if you'll excuse me." Aurora comments, voice low, slightly-bland, completely bypassing his comment as fodder. She clears her throat. It was better that way. With a cigarette soon after plopped into her mouth and lit in a display of small orange embers, she took off out the door, and that was that. Nathan watches her movements, before looking back to Maria, whose own way of avoiding further discussion was to slowly creep back toward her desk and lose herself in her files.

"Why don't you show Nathan around, Arya?" North would begin now in a soft hum, voice still low and calm, although a final solid look she gave has Arya nodding immediately back in orders, before she'd usher him off with a low, "Come with me."

While Nathan did not understand, Arya did.

Because, rather simply, in Maria North terms, that was her own way of saying,

It's time to get the fuck out of my office.