There were many different forms of silence, some wanted and some that were slightly unnerving. There had been periods of each over the last few years but it seemed the latter had taken prominence in their world. As an Auror, Jack had been trained to act quickly and to always do something; luckily he was the kind of wizard who knew when less was more. He was a people person after all and he understood that sometimes a person, even a criminal, needed some respect and patience in order to save himself from a bad ending, and even if JT had been accused of being attack-happy, he preferred to end things amicably. Not that Karina was a criminal…Well, not that he was aware of. So standing on the other side of the door for at least ten minutes, waiting for some kind of response from Karina was perfectly fine by him. He knew her well enough to know she’d respond eventually…though he wasn’t sure if it would be violent or not. She, like most Aurors, had quite a bit of pride and if she needed to feel like she was in charge of the situation then he’d wait patiently.

His wait seemed to be over as he heard some noise from behind the door and suddenly it was thrown open and a very…gaunt Karina greeted him in an hm…less than modest outfit. He didn’t smile like he normally would since the way she looked was not something to smile about. She had been a beautiful woman and she still was somewhere beneath the dark circles and hollowed cheeks. The cloud of smoke that seemed to be wafting out of her flat was even more depressing and it took quite a bit of him to not show his disgust at the rank smell.

"Enter,"

Being a man, it was impossible for JT to not glance down towards the hem of her shirt as she walked away from him and back to her couch that he assumed she had been living on since it looked well worn and she moved towards it all too naturally.

"Wine? Beer? Liquor? I've got the bases covered. If you want food, you're out of luck,"

He shook his head, going against his less professional instincts that told him he would definitely need a beer to get through this.

He sat on a rather raggedy chair, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at her. It was sad to see her like that when he had known her as a strong, lovely witch. He couldn’t help but wonder whose shirt that was that she had sort of buttoned and sort of covering her. She had been dating some bloke a while back but JT hadn’t taken too much interest since he never met the man and she had never told him about him.

 He smiled softly, his dark eyes narrowing as he observed her, deciding how to handle this best.  “How have you been, Karina?”