It would seem that Mark would have finally let his curiosity get the better of him, as he would lean over and watch as Tabitha scribbled her notes. Not that she was attempting to hide the notes she was taking. It served her more as a way to help remember the information, and if by chance she had forgotten something, she could always return to her notes as a way to refresh her own memory. This was something she had been doing since she was a child, and it had never let her down, so she continued to do so throughout her life. Mark’s snicker would be enough to cause her scribbles to pause as she read over the section to see if she had misspelled anything. Her check would take less than a few seconds, and her scribbles would continue on.

Her scribbles would once again stop as he would speak, correcting a misunderstanding she had scribbled down in her notes. Realizing her mistake and what the vices implied, she would frantically scribble in corrections, her face taking a light shade of pink not only from the embarrassment but also finally understanding his words meaning. He would then ask a question, causing her scribbling to stop as she would take a pause to collect herself before answering.

“Yes. It helps me keep a clear idea of what’s needed. Or information that I might not necessarily remember right away. Even the smallest details can be important at a later date.”

Mark took care to answer the questions asked by Tabitha, to which she would scribble down notes for every answer except for the last question. Being personal in nature, she found it would be something much more important to commit to memory instead of writing it down initially, as she was sure she would eventually write it down somewhere, but while out of Mark’s sight. She wasn’t as social as others, but she would assume his response would be pointed towards vices that he felt uncomfortable saying around her, which only left her to wonder to herself silently as she pulled a small-sized shop towel. The towel itself had been cleaned numerous times, but as it had seen its fair share of uses, it would be stained with a few splatters of what one would only assume to be oil stains.

It was at this moment that she realized that she had fully agreed to joining Mark on a case without knowing what he would consider a typical case for himself. This would only add a bit more to her ever-growing queue of questions, or perhaps she would simply leave it as a mystery to be surprised by the results, although she wasn’t entirely fond of surprises.

“While these rounds are soaked, would this be when you tend to other gear? Or do other things to occupy yourself?”

From her upbringing, Tabitha had grown somewhat accustomed to the disbelief and skepticism she would receive when telling people about her family’s profession. But most people assumed her family communicated with the dead in order to solve mysteries, when in fact that was hardly ever the case. They used their knowledge of the occult to find signs of hauntings, sometimes attempting to dispel them and others simply leaving them. But Mark had spoken about the other important part of her family’s work: detective. Being in the occult field, you would quickly adapt to being observant, which lends itself quite well to detective work. As there were many occult phenomena that were staged, they used their skills to discover the truths before the mystic side of the work would even begin.

“Murder cases weren’t often on our radar. And most police didn’t want my family around unless it was absolutely necessary, but they did help in a few cases.”

She would seem to almost pause as she would scrutinize another casing, taking a moment before placing it with the rest of the unsalvageable casings. His answer to her question was just what she had hoped for, and if smaller pieces were missing, she should be able to find replacements, if not make them herself, to allow the machine to function. Grabbing the next casing, she would quickly peak over in his direction before looking back at the task at hand.

“If you want to come back to hang out again, you should bring it with you.”

His sigh and comment were enough to get Tabitha’s attention, but she also knew his soreness about addressing things with his family. She wasn’t sure if the two were connected, but she would ask for its meaning at a later date. Mark promoted himself as a wanderer, but he seemed to be longing to find somewhere to call home. She would catch herself, taking a glance at his eyes as he spoke, before returning her focus to the task as he would move onto the next step.

She would watch on as he added the detergent to the water and spoke about the next step. Tabitha would continue to watch and listen, gently nodding her head.

“Alright. Do we need something to wipe them clean, or do we just shake them in the detergent and let them air dry?”

As they entered her workshop, Mark would last out a whistle, Tabitha easily realizing his intentioned effect. Her workspace was quite nice though, even nice after she had time to clean it as it would look much less impressive. It was littered with old design books and blueprint pages, and a bit of sweeping always helped. He was indeed correct; this was where she spent the brunt of her time while she had an order to fulfill. She took what she would say was a break to eat, sleep, and even do a bit of casual reading to decompress right here. But Mark was quick to distinguish his intention from actual magic, as she tended to attempt to perform actual magic in her living room and quite rarely in the building's cellar. She would give him a light nod as they made their way over to the bench.

“Yes, this is it.”

She would respond as Mark would set his bag down on the bench, opening it to reveal the treasure trove of spent casings he had amassed in his bag. Tabitha would do her best to try to peek into the bag in an attempt to roughly gauge how many were actually inside, a task that even with the smallest sight she could of the top of the bag was next to impossible. She would try her best to pay attention to what he was saying while inspecting the cases. Pausing in her count for only a minute, she would rush off.

“Thirty-eight.”

Tabitha would mutter to herself as she got out of the shop, returning with a fairly decent-sized bucket and setting it on the table next to Mark’s bag before taking another moment to pause again before running back out of the room. This time her return would be much slower, as she returned with a similar-sized bucket three-fourths of the way filled with water. She would struggle a bit with the water, as it was easy to tell that physical strength wasn’t her defining characteristic. It had gone completely forgotten that she could have simply bound a spirit to herself to improve that. Her awkward walk would come to a stop as she reached the edge of the table, setting the bucket down and revealing a bit of a spill line that trailed behind her. But she had returned in time for Mark to continue his lesson.

She would watch on with an almost blank look on her face as he would explain to her what a salvageable casing was versus a scraped casing. And in typical fashion, mere moments after he spoke, she would pull a small notebook from a drawer, opening its pages to quickly scribble down a few notes. Pushing the notebook up and just out of the way as Mark would move the bag between them, she would try her hand. Gingerly taking out a few spent casings, cleaning them off, inspecting for any deformations or cracks, then sorting them accordingly.

“Did you always do this by hand? And on the road, I would imagine it would be more difficult.”

With a bit of small talk while inspecting the casings and also preparing her shops for her new machinery, she has also been studying a bit of what most would consider to be normal human interactions.

Within a week's time, Tabitha had already managed to not only slightly tidy up her shop, but she had also managed to get her latest equipment installed. Along with this, she had also been preparing the rock salt projectiles. Truth be told, the majority of her time for the past week was spent perfecting her method for creating the perfect size and weight for the projectile. They needed to be slightly fragile enough that upon being fired, they could effectively pepper a target, but also strong and durable enough that the impact would deter anyone from continuing to aggress. The task sounded quite simple, but it took much more time than she would have initially inspected.

But while she was preparing his order, she still had to run her small shop, and as Mark would reenter the store, a patron would be exiting with a medium-sized bag of trinkets, candles, and special oils. They would stare at Mark momentarily before turning off and walking off, presumably returning to their own home with the goods they had bought. Mark reaching the counter would be met by Tabitha, who was inspecting one of the ten fully assembled rounds with a stationary magnifying glass.

With her short time and limited materials, she had managed to create a few rounds of the order, but she was still in the process of inspecting her work. She wanted everything to be perfect; after all, first impressions for clients were important, and she would put her best foot forward. Tabitha found herself so focused on the inspection of her work that she hadn't noticed the sound of footsteps heading towards her, and it would seem that after binding, the spirits weren't as weary of him as before. As he spoke, she would let out a lightly yelp, jumping a bit in her seat, almost dropping the bullet, before looking up to Mark. It would seem that his startling her was becoming a recurring theme for them, but one she wouldn't really think too much about.

"Hi, Mark. I thought you forgot about showing me how to clean them."

In actuality, Tabitha had been the one who had forgotten until this moment. With her eagerness to order materials, she overlooked the option to wait and see what he would bring for her. But she would have a good stockpile of everything he needed whenever he needed more. Setting the round, she was inspecting in front of him on the table for him to inspect himself, she would reach into her desk, taking out her notebook and a pencil, ready to take notes on how to clean and prepare the old casings.

"I'm ready to learn whenever you're ready."

Mark’s response was a bit unexpected, as she would quickly look up for her notebook. Her blush noticeably deepened as she shook her head as she would respond as in a slightly low voice.

"I prefer more indoor or late-night outings."

Her eyes would momentarily shift over to the notebook where she had written down the information, taking a moment to weigh her options. Tabitha hadn’t been in business for long, but she seemed to really enjoy the limited time she had spent with Mark, along with the fact that he didn’t react quite as terribly as others did when she showed them the spirits. His occult knowledge, although he didn’t believe in it, was well enough, either that or he read Latin, which both options were good. And to top it off, he was quite handsome. Turning her attention back to Mark, she would respond again, resting her hand on the book.

"I’ll save your number for personal usage if you want me to."

As he gave her the option of returning in two weeks, she would mentally take stock of what she should have available currently to fulfill the order request. With what she had, she would only be able to partially finish the request, but with a bit of scurrying, she would be able to finish it within a week or so. She was poised to answer but was met with the option of him spending more time with her, an interesting option under the guise of learning how to prepare and clean the ammunition casing. In her mind, she would find it more effective to have him help while creating them in case he had any last-minute suggestions.

"I could always use a few tips."