Reading is Fundamental {Kealey}

Ash hadn't thought he'd spoken too loudly, not enough to startle the poor young woman up on the ladder. But apparently he had startled her, because she jumped.

And then started to fall backward off the ladder with a surprised squeal.

Ash's eyes widened as he saw the blond starting to fall. Jumping forward, Ash held his arms out and felt the woman fall into his arms a moment later, something he was sure he wouldn't be fast enough to do if it hadn't been for his years of karate.

"Sorry I startled you, miss," Ash said, standing there with the young woman still being held in his arms. "Are you alright?"

It was taking the woman quite a while to recover after her fall, it seemed. Her eyes were closed, and she didn't really seem to moving all that much. Yes, he had caught her, but had she still been hurt when she fell?

But she was slowly opening her eyes, focusing on him, and seemed a tad surprised at where she was. Then seemed to be rather embarrassed, or at least that's the impression Ash got by how her face flushed.

She said she was fine, but by how he said, Ash really wasn't too sure. Her voice did sound rather...shaky. She had an accent too, Ash noticed when she spoke. Not the Texan accent he was so used to. It wasn't even an American accent. It was Irish, or Scottish, or something like that. Which one, he wasn't exactly sure.

"Again, I'm sorry I startled you," Ash said. He was still holding the woman in his arms, though, even after she had asked if she could help him find something. Maybe she was alright. Setting her back down on her feet, Ash kept his one arm around her waist to make sure that she didn't fall again. "And yes, actually, I could use some help. If you could direct me where I could find the court proceeding records..."

Feeling the young woman step away from him, Ash let his arm fall away from her waist. If she was feeling steady enough, or at least confident enough, to step away, that was going to have to be good enough for Ash. At least he would still be there to catch her again if she fell or stumbled.

After a moment's thought, the woman started giving directions to him, and he listened carefully. Why was he working in New York again? Dallas was so much easier to deal with.

Then she was offering to just show him since the directions were confusing. Ash thought he would probably be able to find his way now that he had gotten the directions, though there was a good possibility that he'd get lost another one or two times before he eventually made it where he was going.

"Brooks," Ash said, giving her a name to go along with the 'Mr.' she had trailed off with. "And a guide down there might be good. I don't seem to have very good direction sense in libraries."

Next thing he knew, the woman was indicating the floor, which she had almost fallen onto, and Ash couldn't stop his eyes from dropping as she pointed, and noticed her shoes. Shoes that were far from practical, far from what he would have expected to see pretty much anywhere other than in a club.

"I'm not trying to be rude or anything, Miss," Ash said, his eyes turning back up to the woman's. "But different shoes would probably be a very good idea. I'm actually surprised you haven't fallen before today."

Small talk. Not exactly what Ash would have expected from the young woman showing him to the Public Documents room, but then again after that fall, she was probably feeling more than a little self-conscious around him. Maybe the small talk and guided tour was her way of dealing with that.

She had fallen before today, and still she wore those kind of shoes to work? Ash couldn't help it, he glanced down at the woman's feet as they continued on. Honestly, he didn't know how women even managed to stand in things like those, never mind walk and work. It was a mystery, one which he would likely never solve.

Lifting his gaze again, Ash shook his head. "You probably should wear other shoes to work," he said, trying not to sound like he was telling her what to do. "Wouldn't want you falling again when there's no one there to catch you."

Kealey. Definitely an unusual, unique name, Ash thought as they were making their way to the stairs to move downward. It definitely matched that accent of hers. But then, who was he to talk about unusual names? Just look at him and his brothers, Josh was the only one who had managed to come out clean.

But the further they went, and still hadn't reached their destination, the more Ash was glad he had asked Kealey to actually show him the way rather than simply giving directions. He was sure that he would have gotten lost and turned around again by this point if he had been on his own down here. Yes, Ash had a decent sense of direction, just not in libraries, it seemed. He'd had the same problem back in college, too.

Then they were in the Public Documents room, and Ash stopped just inside the door, his eyes scanning the room. Yes, Dallas had a rather large section for Public Documents, but it had nothing on this room here. Once again, Ash found himself wanting to be back home rather than stuck in New York.

Maybe once he was back in Dallas, Ash would get Angela, one of the firm's more recent hires who was much more computer savvy than he was himself, to try and dig up this information for him online. That had to be easier than what he was faced with in this room.

But he wasn't in Dallas, and Ash needed to have some work to show for the time here before he caught his plane back home. There really was nothing for it, he was going to have to dive in head first.

"Well, thank you Kealey," Ash said, finally turning to look at the young woman once more. Then he gave a slightly teasing smile. "You've saved me from getting lost among the stacks again back there and startling someone else off a ladder."

She knew that her job entailed climbing ladders, she knew that she tended to get lost in her thoughts while she was in among the stacks, and she knew that she tended to be easily startled at those times. And yet Kealey still seemed to prefer fashion over practicality. Even when she had fallen off a ladder before that day too.

That didn't seem overly intelligent to Ash, but he wasn't exactly about to say anything to that effect; at that moment, Kealey appeared to be the only one available to help him search through the public records for the court proceedings he was wanting to look over, so he wasn't about to ruin that help. Even if he did think she might not be the smartest because of her choices of footwear.

"Yeah, that would be great," Ash replied instead once he heard her offer to help, and then followed Kealey to one side of the room.

Only to have Kealey ask him a moment later why he was looking through court proceedings. "Honestly, I don't see this being something most people do for pleasure," Ash replied, his face taking on a much more sober expression. Which pretty much made it automatically business, not only for him, but everyone else looking through court proceedings.

"So yes, business, and you can call me Ash if you'd prefer. I'm a P.I., but I'm based out of Dallas, so I'm not exactly familiar with all the resources here."

Kealey started talking. And talking. Defending not only her choice in footwear, but also her choices in clothing. Because apparently she had been restricted in what she had been able to wear for years. But that wasn't the part that caught Ash off guard, that wasn't what surprised him about her almost lecture. He hadn't said anything about it, he'd simply thought about her choice in shoes there. Really, if she was this upset by what he had said, why had she waited this long to respond, especially like this? Why had she offered to help him find the court proceedings now that she had helped him find the room they were in?

The more Ash thought about it, the more confused he got. The only explanation he could come up with as to why Kealey had gone off like that was if his face had betrayed his thoughts. But that couldn't be the case, either. If he was that much of an open book, he wouldn't have been able to keep his mutation a secret, even from his family, for as long as he had.

"Ah, but see," Ash replied, after Kealey had seemingly calmed down, explaining about how so many people seemed to come there for personal reasons rather than business. "Looking through the court proceedings is very different than looking through all of that stuff. Those can be very useful, too, but the court proceedings don't tend to be even half as interesting."

Dallas explained the accent, she thought? Yeah, that's what a lot of people thought outside of Texas. Really, it was the small town that Ash had grown up in that explained the accent. Yes, there were a lot of people in Dallas who had accents, but there were also a lot of people who had accents foreign to Texas.

"Actually, I'm not entirely sure, part of the fun of the job," Ash said with a bit of sarcasm colouring his voice. "Figured I'd start with 1997 and move out from there.

"But what about you?" Ash asked, turning to look at Kealey for a moment before he started searching for the first book he'd pull off the shelf to search through. "What's the explanation for your accent?"