She is very beautiful, when she smiles that way. She is beautiful in any case, of course, but there is something in that smile, in the way it softens the jade-green of her eyes, that makes her look less like a stranger in a café, and more like his childhood imaginings of storybook maidens and goddesses. Which is, of course, unreasonable; and yet, what harm in indulging a moment's over-poetic imaginings?

She is not, in fact, far wrong in her assessment. He is not asked on dates every day, but nor is it entirely novel: many women do keep their distance, intimidated (not that he is aware of this) by the melancholy and distant air that hangs about him at times, but many others have not. Some women, some men. He has answered very few of either with more than a polite, gentle, but firm reassurance that he is not in a place for dating. A few times, in the year or two since his discharge from the service, he has accepted a date, and it has gone nowhere, and that has been all right, too.

But none of them had read his poetry, or seen him make sketches of them; and none of them had been quite as blunt in the question itself, after so long of him missing the cues.

He clears his throat again, and nods, setting the sodden napkin aside on the saucer and reaching for his pen. For a moment, he casts around for something to write on, then tears a small strip from the edge of a notebook page, conscientiously folding it first so that the tear is neat and straight. He scribbles down his number and name - Faramir Stewart, and then, as an afterthought (from Books'n'Beans) - and then holds it out. "In case you don't have your phone on you."