As You Were: Part Five

by Alicia McKenzie

The morning light was softer, kinder than the late afternoon sunlight had been the day before. Or maybe it was just that his head ached marginally less today; he wasn't sure which. Nate sighed and concentrated on wrestling the wheelchair as close to the side of Clare's bed as he could. Humiliating, to have to use the damned thing to get from one room to another, but that had been one of the conditions of being allowed out of bed. Not that he'd argued. His leg still hurt enough that the thought of putting weight on it was unappealing.

"You're trying too hard," Clare murmured. He glanced skeptically at her, his stomach twisting again at the ghostly pallor of her face. She gave him a faint, whimsical smile that was gone as quickly as it had come. "It's like putting," she suggested.

"It's like what?" It came out a bit more gruffly than he'd intended. But he felt edgy. He'd expected to find her restless, annoyed at being confined to bed. Instead she seemed--passive, perfectly content to lie there and count the spots on the ceiling.

Clare shrugged slightly. "Putting," she said, sounding tired, as if it was taking too much energy to explain. "You know, golf? Just give yourself a little push in the direction you want to go, and let momentum do the rest."

"Have you ever even golfed? Or been in a wheelchair?" he muttered crossly. But he tried it anyway.

It worked too well. The wheelchair drifted backwards to the bed, managing a suspicious change in trajectory and finally coming to a stop, just at the precise moment to leave him essentially parallel-parked with the bed.

"I could have done that myself," he grumbled, giving Clare a suspicious look. She shouldn't be straining herself, playing with her telekinesis like that. "I was just being careful. I didn't want to run into anything."

Her lips quirked again. "Don't be petulant."

He let that pass. "The nurse thought I was stupid for wanting to get out of bed," he said heavily, trying to relax. The wheelchair wasn't very comfortable, and his head was still spinning. He'd been lying in bed for too long, that was all. "She kept asking me what telepathy was for if I needed to be in the same room with someone to talk to them."

Clare was looking rather morosely at her IV. "What did you tell her?"

Nate coughed, flushing. "That it was hard to explain," he said, and left it at that. He wasn't about to admit that he'd tried to explain, or that the nurse had still resisted the idea of letting him out of bed and he'd been forced to resort to what few shreds of charm he'd been able to muster. Clare made a noncommittal sound, and Nate shrugged. "Besides, it was too quiet in my room. I figured you might be feeling the same way."

They'd been left to their own devices--"To rest!" his mother had emphasized before she'd taken Alison and Aunt Dom away to get a change of clothes and some rest. Harry had poked his head into Nate's room about a half-hour before that to tell him that he had to head back to the Academy to "do some hand-holding" for an emerging empath.

Clare's gaze shifted to the window. "I like the quiet," she commented, almost idly.

"I could go back to my room, then," Nate offered lightly, not really meaning it.

"I didn't say that." Clare finally looked at him, but the dullness in her eyes wasn't reassuring. "Though you do look like it wouldn't hurt you to go back to bed."

Nate shrugged again, not sure why he was trying to keep up the show of diffidence. "I feel better than I did yesterday." Which was true, although he'd been hoping for a bit more of an improvement. It had been years since he'd been injured this badly, and he was learning all over again that even his mother, who was probably the most powerful healer associated with the XSE, had her limits.

Clare sighed. "I don't remember much of yesterday." She shifted, wincing, and he flinched at the flash of pain on the link. "I remember waking up--last night, I think, because it was dark. Mom told me you were okay, then your mother told me to go back to sleep." She scowled half-heartedly at him. "She's better at that little putting-you-to-sleep trick than Harry is."

"More practice," Nate muttered a bit sourly. His mother had used that trick on him last night, too. He'd woken up to the nurse coming in with breakfast. "Apparently we can't be trusted to behave and go to sleep when we're told. We have to be empathically sedated, just to make sure. I'm surprised she didn't have us tied to our beds."

Clare gave him a real smile for the first time since he'd come in, and her eyes lit up for a moment. It was nice to see. "You didn't have any coffee this morning, did you?" she teased.

"Of course I didn't get my coffee," Nate said, deliberately keeping the surly tone, since she seemed to find it so amusing. "Hilda the WonderNurse tried to force grapefruit juice on me."

"Don't knock Hilda. She brought me mango."

"Mango," Nate said wistfully. Still not a replacement for coffee, of course, but it would have been better than grapefruit. He hated grapefruit. "She must like you better."

"Don't be so sure. From what I sensed, she was very taken with you." Clare shivered, the smile falling away as her eyes flickered back to the window. "Maybe that's what you need," she said, the humor gone from her voice. "Your own Florence Nightingale."

It might have been an attempt at a joke, but Nate knew it wasn't. He could see where this was headed. "I don't want a Florence Nightingale," he said firmly. "Especially one who tries to force-feed me grapefruit juice."

"At least she's not liable to get you killed."

He hadn't expected her to be quite that upfront about it, and it took him a moment to find his voice again. "Clare," he started unsteadily, "don't--"

"Don't what?" Her voice shook a little as she looked back at him, but her jaw was set in a resolute line. "Don't point out my own stupidity? I told Dane I didn't need any extra security. I didn't take what he said about DaCosta seriously--"

"Stop," Nate said, a bit more harshly than he'd intended. She looked away from him again, and he sighed. "Yes, I wish you'd taken the bodyguard. But hindsight's 20/20, and if the shooter hadn't been a null, you probably would have had enough warning to catch the damned missile or something." He reached out and placed a hand over hers, surprised when she didn't pull away. "You made a judgement call."

"The wrong one. I should have--" Clare pressed her lips together tightly, anger chasing guilt across her face before exhaustion seemed to win out again. "'What is, is', I suppose," she said flatly. "Amazing how comforting that isn't. I just--" She stopped again, her mouth twisting bitterly. "This is between me and DaCosta, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to forgive myself for letting you get caught in the middle."

"But I'm already there," Nate said without thinking. Clare was wrong. It wasn't just about her and Stef. "And if I wasn't, I'd put myself there."

He hadn't meant to say that quite so vehemently.

Clare gave him a profoundly unsettling look, and Nate tried not to fidget. "I mean, I wouldn't--um--" He closed his mouth with a snap, just to make sure nothing else slipped out before he figured out exactly what to say. This was the perfect reason not to have conversations like this when you were tired and not concentrating all that well. At least there was a little more color in Clare's face, he thought distractedly. That was a good thing, wasn't it?

Clare gave him a tiny, unnerving smile. "My knight in shining armor," she said, her voice not quite steady.

Nate waited for the eruption. It didn't come. "I--didn't mean it that way," he said lamely, when it was clear she was willing to wait him out. "You know--I mean, I know you can--" He stopped, blinking at her as a wave of weary amusement swept across the link. "All right," he said resignedly, "what's so funny?"

Clare smiled again, but there was something almost sad about the way she was looking at him now. "You could give lessons in self-censorship, you know that?" He opened his mouth, but she went on, her voice very soft but that hint of unhappiness even more noticeable. "It's like there's one part of your brain telling you to internalize everything and another telling you to be honest. It's no wonder you sometimes burst out with things you rather wouldn't say."

Nate swallowed, feeling vaguely resentful, and looked her right in the eyes. "If I wasn't afraid you were going to jump on me for saying the wrong thing, maybe I wouldn't do it as much," he said tightly. Well, he'd gotten the whole sentence out that time.

Clare's eyes flickered. "Point taken," she admitted, but the infinitesimal smile was back. He really didn't like that smile. "Of course, it would be a lot more convincing if you only did it with me, as opposed to doing it with everyone--"

"I do not--"

"You do so."

Feeling strangely reckless, Nate leaned forward, not letting go of her hand. "You want me to stop self-censoring?" he asked, and despite everything, couldn't help a grin at the wary look Clare gave him. "Really? Can I? You won't break my jaw or anything if I happen to lean over and--"

"All right!" Clare said, flushing. "So I'm a hypocrite. Can we maybe just hold off on mending our ways until we've both had some more sleep?"

"Coward," Nate said lightly. Meaning it, just a little.

Clare looked briefly as if she was considering biting his head off, but her eyes softened, instead, and she squeezed his hand. "I never denied that, did I?" she asked, the words etched with irony. "Pushy bastard."

"I thought you said I wasn't pushy enough?" Nate asked, and put on a bewildered look, complete with what Aunt Dom had always derisively called the 'puppy dog stare'o'doom' and Uncle Nathan had termed 'a prudent defensive measure for life with the women of this family'.

"I changed my mind. And I'm going to throw something at you if you don't stop looking at me like that, Guthrie," Clare said, sounding flustered. Delighted at having gotten the upper hand, Nate kept it up, and was hard-pressed to keep from grinning again at the harassed look he got in response. "I mean it," she growled. "Pillow to the head in ten seconds, I swear--nine, eight--"

She was going to hit him for this, Nate thought, but he couldn't resist. Before she could get to seven, he leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He had to hoist himself out of the chair a little to do it, but the look on her face was worth the discomfort, and her countdown stopped as abruptly as if he'd slapped a hand over her mouth. "In case I didn't mention it," he said quietly, moving prudently back out of her immediate range, "I'm awfully glad you're not dead."

Clare blinked at him for a moment. Then she mustered a halting smile, her grip on his hand tightening. "The feeling's mutual, believe me," she said, her voice low and rough and her eyes suspiciously bright.

Maybe she just didn't have the energy to smack him, the pessimistic part of him pointed out, but then, she hadn't even tried. And the way she was looking at him--

The astral plane rippled. Nate blinked, then snorted, a bit irritated as he identified the new arrivals. Just when the conversation was getting interesting, he thought regretfully. He'd expected they'd be along sooner or later, but why couldn't they have picked 'later'?

Clare gave a breathless-sounding laugh that made him look back at her with a concerned frown. "They brought coffee," she said, mirth creeping up the link. "I can smell it. Want to be whose idea that was?"

"Oh, look!" Zara said brightly, appearing at the door before Nate could answer Clare's mostly-rhetorical question. Unlike any of their other visitors, she looked perfectly well-rested, her duty uniform as immaculately neat as always. No, Nate thought, eyeing her warily, she wouldn't have thought of bringing them coffee; she might have enjoyed the rule-breaking, but she would never have bothered taking pity on the caffeine-deprived in the first place. "They're alive and kicking after all. So much for the rumor mill at the Tower."

"That's not funny, Zara," Nick said, scowling as he followed her into the room. He was, of course, the one carrying the coffee, and the slightly furtive edge to his posture made Nate smile. Then again, maybe it was just his mood automatically lightening at the smell of coffee. Nick turned his attention away from his sister, a warm smile replacing his irritated look almost immediately. "Hey. You two look better than you did yesterday."

"So long as we look better than we feel," Nate quipped.

"Well," Zara said helpfully, sitting down at the end of the bed and earning herself a wary look from Clare, "I think you both look like death warmed over, so--"

"Did anyone ask you what you thought?" Clare asked crossly, but went right back to eyeing the coffee. Nate bit back a sigh of rueful amusement. The fact that she was feeling well enough to snap at Zara should have been reassuring. It wasn't, though. After all, one last chance to bite Zara's head off would have been sufficient incentive to Clare to drag herself off her deathbed. "Black?" she asked Nick plaintively.

"For you, yes," Nick said with a grin, passing her one of the cups. "The usual flavored crap for Nate."

Nate tried to glower at him, but the vaguely Irish cream-like smell coming from the cup Nick handed him was just too nice for him to keep up the pretense.

"I have to admit, it takes real talent to get both blown up and shot in one night." Zara gave Clare a sideways look, her smile turning mocking. "I'm curious. What were the two of you doing that you didn't sense any of it coming?"

Clare's expression tightened. "It was a null," she grated, glaring at Zara. "And I know you know that, so fuck off."

Zara opened her mouth, but abruptly closed it again, glancing a bit guardedly at her brother, who was gazing at her steadily. "There's that 'behave or I'll beat you' look again," she murmured, folding her hands in her lap and giving them all a demure look that was so completely unconvincing Nate was almost tempted to laugh. "I'll be good."

"That would be a switch," Nick muttered, and went to retrieve the chair from over by the window where Alison had left it. He dragged it to the other side of the bed and sat down, a sigh escaping him. "Shit, I'm tired. I only got back from Dallas about an hour before the attack on you two. I don't think I've quite managed to unwind."

Clare frowned. "It took you that long to clean up? I didn't know the incursion was that major."

"Oh, it wasn't," Nick said immediately, and Nate, who'd felt his stress levels shoot up at the idea that it had taken Nick two days to sort out whatever had happened on the Dallas perimeter, told himself to relax. After all this time, he told himself disgustedly, he should be over that particular gut reaction. He wasn't the only one who'd been at a highly impressionable age during the worst of the Sentinel War. "I spent most of my time correcting procedural lapses," Nick went on, sounding increasingly disgusted. "They're getting sloppy out there. Complacent. Just because we haven't had a major Sentinel incursion for ten years--" Nick stopped, shaking his head and looking chagrined. "Sorry. Stewing."

"So we noticed. Maybe you should try and talk Uncle Sam into putting you in charge out at the perimeter?" Zara suggested mischievously. "Then you could straighten them out but good."

Nick gave her an appalled look. "Fuck, no. I'm not that much of a masochist."

"Oh? Could've fooled me, big brother."

Remembering something Alison had said yesterday when he'd first woken up, Nate cleared his throat hesitantly. "Umm--I was wondering--" he started. Nick and Zara both looked at him inquisitively, and he tried to think of some moderately delicate way to put it. "Alison said your mother--I mean, did she--"

"Kill DaCosta?" Zara asked, and Nate, who'd only intended to ask if Sulven had calmed down yet, went rigid, his blood running cold. Thankfully, Zara's next words allayed that momentary rush of irrational panic. "Regretfully, no." She made a face. "As if Mom couldn't have gotten into the holding area if she'd really tried, whatever Uncle Sam did. She must be going soft in her old age."

"She didn't really want to do anything to Stef," Nick said, giving his sister a disapproving look. "She was just angry. Besides, we don't even know for sure that Stef arranged it." He slouched a little farther in his chair. "There was actually a claim of responsibility yesterday--"

"From?" Clare asked, staring down into her coffee.

"One of those nutjob-esque little militia groups," Zara said, and shot a challenging look at Clare. "I thought you'd have stamped them all out by now?"

Clare looked up, her eyes narrowing dangerously, and Nate leapt to answer before the two of them could have at it again. "We stamp," he said quickly. "But they multiply. Nature of the beast, I guess." He looked across the bed at Nick. "Stef did imply he'd arranged something, though. Can't the telepaths debriefing him find out whether this was it?" Or the start of it, he thought suddenly, remembering exactly what Stef had said. It had certainly seemed to imply multiple targets.

"They're trying," Nick said, "but Stef had some telepath implant shields in his mind. Whoever it was did a good job, too." He grimaced. "You know there's a limit to what we can do telepathically to a suspect before his lawyer starts throwing accusations of unnecessary force around."

Zara scoffed. "Rip them down, I say," she proclaimed with a bloodthirsty smile. "The case against him is airtight. It can stand a complication or two."

"And let's all take a moment to be glad Zara's not running Legal Affairs," Clare observed, and then looked back at Nick. "By the way, who's running our division while we're stuck in here?"

"Uncle Sam had Cate Dixon come over from Berlin," Nick said, and Nate nodded, not surprised. Cate was the European section chief, and technically the third-ranking command officer in the division. There was no one better suited to heading the division in their absence, really, especially as she'd spent five years working with him and Clare in the North American section before transferring. "You know I love Mel," Nick went on, "but she's not up to taking point on something like this."

Nate managed a chuckle. "Mel would be the first to agree with you," he said, and sipped at his cappuccino, telling himself it would be no good if he let it get cold. "She'll be happy to backstop Cate. They get along well."

"They'll be fine," Clare said restively. "I just wish we could be there to head up the investigation ourselves. If Stef--" She stopped, sighed, and gave Nate a wry look. "I just feel like we left the job unfinished."

He tried to smile. "Would it surprise you to know I feel the same way?" he asked quietly. Above and beyond his sense of lingering guilt for not having told her himself about Stef's threat, he was getting increasingly anxious about what else might happen, if this was just one part of Stef's failsafe plan. If it was anywhere near as ambitious as his attempt to change the timeline had been--

"You'll have to go on feeling that way for a while," Nick pointed out, breaking Nate's train of thought. Clare scowled at him, but he met that baleful gaze steadily, not backing down in the slightest. "Even when you get out of here, I doubt you'll be cleared to go back on active duty for a while."

Clare's mouth twisted. "What's the good of having a healer in the family, then?" she grumbled, and Nate couldn't help but feel a little of the same frustration. Nick was right, he knew that, but still, the idea of sitting here while all Stef's plotting came to fruition was aggravating, to say the least.

"Oh, this is cute," Zara snorted. "Just lie there and be glad you're alive, Summers." Nate opened his mouth, and Zara pointed at him. "You too, Guthrie."

"You both nearly died," Nick said more gently, and Nate couldn't help but glower at him. The two of them fell into the 'good-cop, bad-cop' act far too naturally. "Besides, remember what your mother's always saying about healing serious injuries."

"'A healer can manage eighty percent, but the other twenty's up to the patient'," Nate quoted a bit sullenly. It was what she always told the other mutant healers she trained, a rule of thumb that she drilled into them from day one.

"Think of it as an involuntary vacation," Zara suggested.

Clare had gone back to gazing disconsolately at her coffee. "We've already had one of those this week."

"Oh, bitch, bitch. Am I suppose to feel sorry for you?"

Clare gave Zara a look that could be charitably described as bloodcurdlingly evil. "If anyone has an objection to me strangling her with my IV," she growled, her eyes flickering first to Nick, then sideways to Nate, "now would be the time to speak up."

Nick coughed to cover a laugh. "Nice to see that some things never change, isn't it?" he asked Nate, who prudently kept his mouth shut.

***

He was dreaming. Like most telepaths' dreams, his were usually clear, vivid things, played out like a movie behind his eyes. These weren't. They were fragments, flashes in the dark that kept coming back over and over to the image of Clare toppling forward, blood all over the front of her shirt. Nate tried, but couldn't break the cycle, couldn't force his way into a lucid dream he could direct elsewhere. Couldn't shake the idea that someone was watching him, laughing--

Putting a hand on his shoulder? Nate's eyes snapped open and he blinked, disoriented, at the person leaning over him. "Hey," he said hoarsely, coughing to clear his throat.

His father stared down at him for a moment, then slowly withdrew to the chair beside the bed. "You were dreaming," Sam said roughly. "Ah got the impression it wasn't a good dream."

Nate shivered. "It wasn't," he admitted. He concentrated for a moment, sensing Clare asleep in her room and the psi-imprints of the pair of telepaths on the security detail. There were no other familiar minds in the immediate vicinity--or anywhere in the building, either, he saw as he broadened his scan. "Thanks for waking me up," Nate murmured, pulling back inside his own shields and wondering what time it was. It wasn't quite dark, but there wasn't much light from the window, either. Later, in any case. He remembered picking at dinner, then watching the news for a while--then he must have drifted off, he supposed.

His father grunted, the sort of response he only made when he didn't trust himself to find the right words for a situation. Nate took a couple of deep breaths, waiting for his heartrate to slow. His head was beginning to throb, probably from the scan. Reflex or not, it maybe hadn't been such a good idea.

"You're here late," Nate ventured. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness, enough to let him get a sense of Sam's body language and realize that the conversation probably wasn't going any further unless he took the initiative.

"Visiting hours aren't over quite yet." Sam's voice was more level this time, but headache or no headache, Nate could sense how tightly he was shielding. The sensation of walls was almost intimidating, it was so strong. "Ah figure they'll be along to kick me out in a while."

And people wondered where he'd learned the whole stiff upper lip thing, Nate reflected tiredly. He really didn't know what to say, how to tell his father that he didn't need to keep quite such a firm lid on what he was feeling--or whether his father would even listen to him if he tried. He did need to try, though.

"You didn't need to sit here in the dark," he said, trying to buy himself a little time to think. "I don't think I would have noticed." His throat felt like sandpaper again. Nate reached out for the water glass he'd left on the bedside table, but pain shot through his shoulder and he froze, gritting his teeth. "Damn it," he muttered weakly. "Dad, can you--"

"Should've asked in the first place," Sam scolded gently, handing the glass to him. Nate took a careful sip, and immediately wished for an icecube or two. "Want the light on, then?" his father asked. "Ah only left it off because you were sleeping so soundly when ah got here."

Nate hesitated, and then sighed. "Actually, leave it off. My head hurts." Besides, his eyes were adjusting. He could even make out the troubled look Sam was giving him.

"Just your head?" The question was almost gruff.

"Well, no," Nate admitted a bit wryly, but went on hurriedly as he sensed a flash of worry slip through his father's shields. "But I'm feeling better, really." The headache was bearable, and everything else just ached. If he kept perfectly still, that was. He really had never been any good at the more sophisticated pain-control techniques Sulven had tried to teach them all. "Mom went back home to get some sleep, I hope?" His father nodded, and Nate tried to look stern. "You should go join her. I'll be fine."

His father's expression softened. He had to be letting his defenses down, just a little, because Nate was getting a definite impression of his emotions - relief and love, mostly, with traces of worry and a fierce, implacable anger - and a few stray thoughts were escaping, too. Wish he'd stop trying to be so casual about this, Nate heard him think. Stubborn as a mule about showing weakness.

Nate decided to take it as an opening, rather than say anything about the hypocrisy implicit in that train of thought. "I wish Mom hadn't put me to sleep last night," he said thoughtfully, eyeing his father. "Alison said I missed you." His father shifted uneasily in his chair, his shields going back up, and Nate frowned. Come to think of it, Alison had been strangely insistent that things were hectic at the Tower, as if she'd thought he'd needed an explanation why their father hadn't been there while he'd been awake. Nate had been a little baffled, but mostly amused, and had assured her that he didn't feel neglected--but maybe he should have pushed a little harder. "Dad, what's the matter?"

"You have to ask?" Sam countered, but then sighed as Nate gave him a skeptical look. "Ah came by later yesterday deliberately," he admitted a bit stiffly, and then hesitated as a nurse passing by in the hall paused briefly to peer into the room. Once she moved on, he continued, still sounding uncomfortable. "Ah wasn't sure ah trusted myself to be around you or Clare while you were awake until ah got my temper back under control."

Nate took it at face value. His father had enough experience to understand how hard it was for a sick or injured telepath to keep their shields up against someone who was projecting too much, too forcefully. Still, he'd be willing to bet a month's pay that there was at least a little unwarranted guilt underneath it all.

"Makes sense," Nate said easily, and was glad to see Sam relax a little. "Besides," he went on, "Alison told me how hectic things were at the Tower. Has there been any headway with the investigation yet?"

His father looked intensely grateful for the subject change. "Nothing substantive yet. Cate's turned up a few leads. But Stefano's still resisting deep-scans, so we don't know for sure yet whether or not he was involved." He gave a thin, humorless smile, his fingers tapping a restless staccato beat on the arm of the chair. "Ah may give Sulven a crack at him yet. Once ah'm sure she'll behave herself."

The thought should have made him feel just a little sorry for Stef, really. Nate wondered what it said about him that he didn't. "If that's what needs to be done," he muttered, his eyes straying towards the wall separating his room from Clare's as he found himself fighting the urge to reach out again, just to reassure himself that she was all right. He'd done it once already, he didn't need to do it again. His obsessive-compulsive tendencies could take the night off; he really didn't want to find out how much worse his headache could get.

"Ah looked in on Clare when ah came in," Sam said suddenly. Nate gave him a suspicious look, but his father just shrugged, as nonchalantly as if he'd simply interpreted the direction of Nate's attention and answered the question he'd figured was coming. "She was sleeping soundly, too. But ah guess you can probably sense that."

"Yeah," Nate muttered, wondering when people were going to stop rubbing his nose in the fact that he was a lot more transparent than he liked to believe. Maybe it was the universe's way of telling him to stop repressing things. Or maybe it was just his week for it. He sighed heavily, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, and trying, without much success, to dampen the pain.

"You should go back to sleep, son."

"I don't want to." It came out much more petulantly than he'd intended, and he opened his eyes, grimacing semi-apologetically at his father. "I'm sorry. I'm whining. It's just--I don't think I can handle those dreams again. Not just yet." The thought of going back to sleep, to that, made his stomach twist.

"Maybe it'd help to talk about it, then?" Sam suggested gently, leaning forward in his chair.

Somehow Nate doubted it. The problem was he'd done too much talking, lately--and Clare would point, laugh, and repeat what she'd said about self-censoring if she ever heard him think that. "There's nothing to talk about, Dad," Nate said heavily, managing a half-shrug with his good shoulder. "No symbolism to analyze or anything. I'm just flashing back to the other night. I keep--" His voice wavered, but he forced himself to go on. "It's just--seeing Clare get shot that's sticking with me. I know she's okay, but my subconscious doesn't want to let it go, I guess."

"It will," his father said reassuringly, laying a hand lightly on his arm. "Ah know that doesn't help much right now. But you know as well as ah do that dreaming about something like this is normal. Especially when you've got a telepath's memory working against you." He gave a soft chuckle that sounded almost bleak. "Your ma would probably say you're dreaming about Clare because your subconscious doesn't want to deal with having--had such a close call yourself."

"Maybe," Nate said awkwardly, trying not to flinch as his father's shields wavered again and anguish-edged memories of the other night lashed outwards like a whip, "but there's more to it than that."

"Oh?"

Nate took a deep breath, folding his hands around the glass so they wouldn't tremble. Sam waited patiently, and Nate tried to convince himself that talking about this would be a good thing. After all, he sure as hell needed some advice. Preferably from someone who wasn't going to smile smugly and dwell on the fact that they'd known all along.

"Dad, you know--" Nate stopped, took another, shakier breath, and went on. "You know I'm in love with Clare, right?"

There. That was good. He could stop self-censoring when he tried.

Sam simply nodded. "You finally come out and tell her?"

"Um--yeah," Nate said unsteadily, profoundly relieved to sense nothing from his father but calm acceptance, with a trace of honest curiosity. "It just--slipped out." His father nodded again, sitting back to listen, and Nate relaxed a little, suddenly glad he'd brought it up. "She didn't react too well at first."

"Probably just caught her off guard."

"Bad timing all around," Nate said, and decided, without suffering even a twinge from his conscience, not to mention anything about Zara. He hadn't slept with Zara to make Clare jealous, or because she'd been there and Clare hadn't. It really had just been a stupid thing to do, an alcohol-inspired lapse in judgement. Just because it had turned into an aggravating factor, making his bad timing worse, didn't mean it was relevant. Or that his father needed to know. "But the other night--we were talking, and it wasn't so bad." Nate managed a weak smile. "Then the apartment blew up."

His father gave a snort of laughter, but it was an oddly sympathetic sound. "Typical. You start making some headway, and something blows up. Got to be an unwritten rule around here, given how often it happens."

Nate hesitated for a moment, but the comment had been rueful, not teasing, and so he gave another half-shrug and continued. "I'm worried," he confessed, and wondered if his father would guess that he'd meant to say 'scared'. Probably. "About what happens now. I mean, she's not running away, and that's a good thing, but--" He trailed off disconsolately, and took another sip of his water. "I don't know," he said with a sigh.

"Not such a bad thing, maybe. At least for now."

"You think?"

"Look, being sure of yourself ain't always what's needed in a situation. And ah think this one probably requires more care than most." His father smiled fondly at him, and then leaned forward, adjusting the blankets almost fussily. "Not that ah've ever had to worry about you running off half-cocked."

"Oh, yeah. Caution's my middle name," Nate muttered, unable to keep the irony out of his voice. The thing was, he usually was a big proponent of thinking before doing. He'd just forgotten that this week, or lost it somewhere along the way.

"You're acting like you regret telling her," his father observed. "Do you?"

There was the question of the year, Nate thought glumly. "A little, I guess," he admitted after a moment. He'd been lying if he denied the fact that he'd been having serious doubts. "It would have been so much easier if things had stayed the way they were." Clare's forest-image came back to mind suddenly, and Nate smiled a bit sadly. "Safer," he said softly.

"But?" Sam prompted, clearly expectant.

"But the big things aren't supposed to be easy, are they?" Nate looked up at his father, wanting--something, very badly. Reassurance, probably, although he knew he wasn't going to get it. Things weren't that simple. "I do love her, Dad," he said painfully. "I really do."

"Ah know," his father said softly, then gave a nostalgic smile. "Ah remember when you were all little. Zara used to spend her days coming up with new ways to torture you."

Nate couldn't help but blink at the abrupt change of subject. "I know," he said a bit cautiously, wondering where this was going. His father sometimes had the bad habit of stopping at every anecdote along the way to his point, something Nate's mother had always attributed to his 'good Kentucky upbringing'. "I always wondered why me."

"Ah reckon it was because Harry was a biter," Sam said, sounding so much like his usual practical self that Nate almost smiled. "You and he were the smallest, but you were an easier target." His father's gaze was suddenly very direct, and oddly wistful. "Clare was always fighting with Zara about it. Always rescuing you. I just hope this isn't about rescuing her."

Nate's heart did a little flip-flop in his chest. "Is that wrong?" he said unevenly, because there was no way he was going to lie through his teeth and deny that had anything to do with it. "If that's part of it?"

Out in the hall, a pleasant and obviously synthesized voice came over the P.A., announcing that visiting hours were over, and his father sighed. "You're so like your ma," he murmured. "Deep down, you've got the same need to heal." He reached out and retrieved Nate's water glass, putting it back on the bedside table. "You're got to keep something in mind, though," he went on, sounding almost sad. "The problem with fixing a bird's broken wing is that eventually, they fly away."

***

"I was starting to forget what sunlight felt like."

Nate snorted. "Don't be melodramatic," he scolded lightly. Clare only slouched farther in her wheelchair and continued to bask in the warm midday sun, wearing a smile so beatific it was frightening. "We've only been here for three days, remember?"

"Four, math-impaired one," she said imperiously, waving a dismissive hand. He raised an eyebrow, and she smiled sunnily at him. "Well, three and three-quarters. Whatever. It still feels like forever."

Nate couldn't help a crooked grin, amazed at how radically her mood had been altered by a little fresh air. Their doctor hadn't been keen on the idea of letting them outside, but he'd relented and let their security detail take them up to the hospital's rooftop garden for a change of scenery. The perfect weather had probably contributed to his change of heart, Nate figured. It really was a beautiful day, almost summer-like.

"It only feels like forever because we're not used to the inactivity," he said, maneuvering his wheelchair a little closer to Clare's. Though he'd woken up feeling much better this morning, his leg had buckled under him in the process of getting the ten steps from his bed to the washroom and he'd wound up on the floor. Very undignified. So when Hilda the Wondernurse had come in with the wheelchair, wearing a threatening expression and fully prepared to launch into a lecture on hospital policy and "unruly patients who insist upon going gallivanting" - he'd 'heard' the tirade in her mind, fully formulated and ready to be unleashed at the slightest show of resistance - he'd submitted meekly.

"You're probably right," Clare allowed, and undid the belt of her robe, fanning herself. "Whew. That sun's hot, isn't it?"

Under the robe, she was wearing gray sweat pants and a white tank top. Nate was fairly sure it was the same outfit from the other day in the Danger Room, when all the shouting and life-altering revelations had been going on. They'd both done away with the damned hospital gowns as soon as humanly possible, but Aunt Dom had needed to raid Clare's locker at the Tower for something else for her to wear. Thinking about that led to thoughts of the bombed-out hole that Clare's apartment undoubtedly resembled, and Nate gave her a speculative look.

"Hey, have you decided where you're staying once we get out of here? I forgot to ask."

Clare shrugged. "Probably with Mom for now." Her mouth twisted a little as she gazed back out at the city. "I'm more bothered by the apartment than I should be," she confessed. "It's just a place, I know, but it was my place." She reached out and plucked a tiny purple flower from the bush next to her, twirling it idly between her fingers as she went on, more flippantly. "Not to mention the fact that all the clothing I have to my name is what I'm wearing, the black version of the same outfit, and a spare uniform back in my locker at the Tower. Do you know how much I hate shopping for clothes?"

"Wasn't Alison going to pick you up some stuff?" He'd walked - or wheeled, rather - into Clare's room yesterday just in time to overhear the tail end of a muttered consultation about sizes and color preferences.

"Would you mind, Guthrie? I'm trying to sulk here."

"Sorry," Nate murmured. Clare gave him a mock-haughty look, and again, he lost the battle not to smile. She just looked so much better today. There was more color in her face, and the pattern of her thoughts was bright and clear, the dulling haze of fatigue and discomfort much fainter than it had been even last night.

"You know what's worse?" Clare said suddenly.

"Than shopping?"

She swatted him gently. "Than the inactivity," she growled, her lips quirking helplessly. Nate shrugged to indicate he didn't know, and she continued dryly, answering her own question. "It's that once we get out of here, we have only our desks to look forward to."

"Restricted duty isn't so bad," Nate said, wondering who he was trying to convince. Not that he was an adrenalin junkie, but part of the reason he was content with his job and had never envied Clare hers was that he very often got out into the field more than she did. "Besides," he said, reaching out and taking the little flower from Clare and sniffing it appreciatively, "we'll have plenty of time to catch up on our paperwork, that way. All those post-operational reports never got finished."

"There is that," Clare said with a bright smile that suddenly made Nate regret having brought it up. He opened his mouth to point out there were plenty of other things the desk-bound could do besides paperwork, and Clare laughed at him. "Don't worry, Nate, I won't make you do any of the nasty evil reports. You can read the backlog of intel briefings instead."

"You're too kind."

"I have my magnanimous moments." Clare gave a content-sounding sigh and Nate sensed her relaxing her guard even further. She was getting practically mellow. The link was wide open, resonating softly with a serene sort of appreciation. "It's so gorgeous up here."

Nate sent silent agreement. Someone had taken obvious care with the layout of the garden, and the plants looked radiantly healthy, most of them blooming enthusiastically. There was even a small fountain at the center of the garden, and the soft gurgling of the water was almost soothing.

The quiet was the most surprising thing. The traffic noise was muted, something Nate hadn't expected since the hospital was only ten stories tall, a virtual pygmy by the the standards of mid twenty-first century New York. If it hadn't been for the security detail standing back at a discreet distance, Nate might have been able to delude himself into thinking they'd actually found a little privacy up here.

Catching his thought, Clare sniffed loudly. "Did I mention I hate being babysat?" she asked, eyeing the nearest security officer, who merely smiled and averted his eyes.

It was nice to hear her making a snarky comment about their faithful bodyguards, Nate reflected. Hopefully that meant she'd gotten past her bout of guilt over not having taken the extra security in the first place. "Don't bitch at Dane's nice minions. They're here for your own good," Nate scolded, and caught her hand as she tried to swat him again.

"Our own good, you mean," she groused, giving his hand a quick squeeze and then pulling away.

"Hey, it was your apartment that got blown up--"

"--an apartment you happened to be in at the time--"

"The why of any situation, I suppose," Nate admitted. "I doubt they minded the possible two-for-one." His father had sent over some briefing documents yesterday - 'to give you and Clare something to read', the note had said - and Nate had been surprised to see that the group which had claimed responsibility for the attack was a minor one with only two previous operations on record, both relatively small-scale. It wasn't what he'd expected.

"Probably not. But let's hear it for low batting averages." Clare slouched even further in her wheelchair, closing her eyes, and Nate refrained from pointing out that she was going to fall out if she kept it up.

"That can't be comfortable," he said instead.

"Better than that damned bed." Clare's eyes opened and she straightened a little, giving him a thoughtful look. "Which reminds me. I've got a bone to pick with you, I think."

"What?" Nate asked a bit warily, though he didn't sense any anger from her. No real heat at all, actually. That was a good thing, wasn't it?

"I think you did something when you barged into my mind the other night. Now that I'm sleeping normally again, I've been having these weird dreams. Forests and snowstorms." Nate's eyes widened, and as he struggled to stifle any further reaction, Clare went on, looking faintly troubled. "It took me a while to remember what you said about seeing a forest in my mind. Those last few minutes before the missile hit are still kind of hazy."

Careful, the part of Nate's mind that wasn't frozen with incredulity told him. It was an opening, but he couldn't push too hard. If he did, she'd shut him out completely and he'd be back at square one. Probably worse than square one, come to think of it. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars--

He and Harry had finally gotten the chance to talk yesterday. Harry had never seen the forest-image in Clare's mind, but he'd agreed that it had to be significant, given the circumstances which had provoked it. A little discreet prying was in order, they'd decided. Only Nate had thought to leave it for a while, at least until he and Clare were both out of the hospital and feeling more like themselves. He'd never expected Clare to bring it up of her own accord. And what the hell did it mean that she was dreaming about it now?

"They're just weird dreams, not nightmares," Clare said suddenly. Misreading the link, maybe, and thinking he needed reassurance. "I don't know what happened, whether you tweaked something in my subconscious--"

"I must have, from the sounds of it," Nate said as evenly as he could. Calmly, he had to go about this calmly, he told himself, trying to unobtrusively guard his thoughts. "I could take a look--"

Clare straightened a little more, looking uneasy. "I'm--not sure."

It was a better answer than 'I don't think so', but not by much. "Hey, if I was the one who jarred it loose, I should be able to find it again," he said, trying to sound reasonable. Odd that she wasn't dwelling on the question of why he'd barged into her mind in the first place. Under the circumstances, he would have expected a little indignation, at least--but then, her reaction had been unusually mild in the first place, he remembered. That had been part of the mystery.

"I could just meditate." He sensed her withdrawing a little, not quite beginning to raise her shields, but clearly contemplating it. "Figure it out that way."

"Or you could let me help you," Nate said, not having to fake the edge of exasperation. "Clare, I'm not suggesting you let me traipse around your mind unsupervised. We can do this together." Clare looked away, her jaw clenching, and Nate sighed, extending a hand and trying to sound persuasive as he went on. "Remember what your father always said about messing with the subconscious? Come on, just trust me--"

Clare's head whipped back around as she bristled at him. "Did I say I didn't?" she snapped, but reached out and took his hand anyway, as if forcing herself to do it before she changed her mind. The physical contact only heightened Nate's awareness of how nervous she was. "Just watch what you're doing. And I reserve the right to kick you out if this starts going in a direction I don't like."

"Fair enough." Nate closed his eyes and used the link as a jumping-off point, slipping into her mind before she could say another word. If he gave her too long to think about this, she'd start having second thoughts, and he didn't want that.

With her expecting him, he hadn't been sure what to expect. This was her mind, her rules, and although he was inside her shields, Clare alone would determine how he saw his surroundings. The aspect she chose to present to him was a stained-glass landscape of unearthly complexity, twisting spirals of color so unliked the usual disciplined pattern of her thoughts that he hesitated, wondering whether this was a defensive configuration of some sort.

Had to be, although it didn't quite make sense. Stained glass was fragile, breakable. Deciding to take it as a sign of ambiguity, Nate visualized his astral self - leaving out the armor, since whatever was going on, he honestly didn't think he was going to need to protect himself against her - and ran a 'hand' along one delicate blue-red-purple arch. It didn't give, and he sighed inwardly.

#Relax, Clare.#

#I know,# she sent back, her voice clear despite the weird echo one got speaking to another telepath within their own mind. Her discomfort was a palpable thing here, a shadow that flickered at the corner of his vision, vanishing whenever he tried to face it directly. #Give me a second,# she said, and he sensed her concentrating hard.

It took maybe three seconds for the landscape to change, and then it happened all at once, the stained-glass gone in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Everything was free-flowing light now, running in the same bizarre spirals but no longer locked away. Accessible, Nate thought, and reached out to touch the same arch he had a moment ago. The contact flooded his mind with imagery, and he separated himself, fighting back amusement. He knew a mental to-do list when he saw one, and this one was oriented around what she was going to have to do to replace everything that had been blown up along with the apartment.

#I see you meant it literally when you said you hated shopping,# he observed.

#Give me a bookstore, a nice antique shop, or a good specialty electronics place where I can find a new gadget or two and I'll shop until I drop,# she sent back flippantly, but the uneasiness was still there, even if she was still trying to hide it from him. #Anything else is a waste of time. So are we getting down to business here or what?#

Nate hesitated, briefly uncertain, but then told himself not to be a coward. #Yeah. I don't think we should go digging to find it, though.# Looking for forests and winter weather would probably turn up a lot of real memories, and he wasn't sure her patience with the procedure would hold out if they had to go sifting through too much.

#What's the plan, then?#

#The image was part of a specific emotional response.# It was hard to be so clinical. But as long as he focused on finding out what the forest-image was and why it was impinging on her dreams, rather than trying to figure out the emotions behind it, she'd probably reciprocate by not panicking and kicking him out of her mind. #If I provoke the same response, I'd wager we see the image again.#

The light moving around him in its dizzying patterns seemed to freeze, just for an instant, but started to flow again as Clare wrestled her defensive impulses back under control. #I don't know, Nate,# she sent back apprehensively.

Well, he'd expected that. What he was proposing to do was something she'd usually avoid like the plague. Clare, like many alpha-level telepaths, was a de facto low-level receiving empath. There was a very fine line between an emotion and an unspoken thought, after all, and strong telepaths who used their powers regularly and strenuously almost always developed some capacity for receptive empathy, as if by building up their mental 'muscles' they managed to expand into another part of the psionic spectrum.

Projective empathy was another matter entirely. Most telepaths were particularly vulnerable to it; it undercut their defenses in a way that even Askani training couldn't completely prevent. Nate was immune - being both telepathic and empathic was helpful in many ways, even if it had made for a lot of extra work in training - but Clare wasn't, and had fretted about it more than most. She didn't like having a built-in vulnerability, Nate knew. Even if she was perfectly capable of swatting an offending empath before they got very far at all.

#I thought you trusted me?# he sent back challengingly, knowing that reassuring her would be the absolute worst thing to do. Much better to needle her a little, goad her so that her pride overcame her edginess. Clare hated admitting fear.

#Oh, for the love of--fine!# The whiplash of anger that accompanied the words was sharp enough to make him flinch. #And they call me manipulative.#

#You are,# he pointed out, adding as much of a soothing mental caress as he dared. #You just don't like being on the receiving end.#

#Would you just hurry up and do it, before I change my mind?# she growled at him, the light around him flaring brighter, to the point where he almost shed his astral form, just so that it didn't wind up singed around the edges.

#I will. Just relax, okay?# he urged her, and reached out, empathically this time, to do something he rarely did and deliberately alter someone's emotions.

Everything around him blurred and shifted as he brought his empathic abilities into place. It was hard, to do that and hold himself in her mind at the same time. Really, empathy and telepathy functioned on whole different sensory levels. He'd always seen telepathy as a mixture of sight and sound - you heard someone's thoughts, saw the images in their mind - but empathy was about tasting emotions. So very different.

But once he had himself centered again, it wasn't hard to do what he'd intended. The emotions he needed were all right here in her mind, not far beneath the surface. Nate brought them out, skillfully heightening them as he wove them together. It was an odd combation, he thought again. There was the tingling sharpness of disbelief, the acidic tang of worry, and a faint, almost imperceptible trace of bittersweet yearning, but no anger. No real fear. It really didn't make--

He saw the flicker of white and grabbed at it instinctively, not waiting for Clare to react.

Immediately, he wished he hadn't, as

it

sucked

him

in--

"Shit!" Nate heard himself curse--and not in the telepathic sense, either. Aloud. There was ground, or the equivalent, beneath his feet, and he staggered, taking a ragged breath - or at least something that felt an awful lot like one - as he blinked around in shock. Well, he reflected wildly, he'd wanted to find the forest, right? The fact that he had was a good thing.

He just hadn't expected to wind up standing in it.

#Clare?# he called, and then, feeling enormously self-conscious, repeated it aloud. But neither attempt got an answer. Nate could sense her presence--why wasn't she responding?

But the worry faded a little, leaving some room for wonder as he continued to absorb his surroundings. The verisimilitude was amazing. As far as he could tell, the forest was real and he was actually here--physically here, not simply as a more solid than usual astral form. The air was bitterly cold, enough that his breath was visible and he couldn't stop himself from shivering. It was overwhelming. He'd never been on a mental landscape where the sensory experience was so complete, where everything seemed so solid.

And yet everything was simultaneously so surreal. He'd thought the forest-image was strange when he'd first seen it, but being here, experiencing it like this, made it crystal-clear that this wasn't a fragment of real memory. It had to be a construct of some sort. There were leaves on the trees - some of them were even in blossom - and wildflowers everywhere, but everything was coated in ice, smothered in a thin blanket of snow as if winter had descended like a curtain, freezing everything in an instant. Birds sat like ice-rimed little statues on branches, and a few were frozen in mid-flight from one tree to another.

It was so blatantly symbolic it made his head spin. He just wasn't sure what it meant.

There was a path, of sorts, or at least a break in the trees. Nate followed it, telling himself he'd just look around a little first, before he worried about getting himself out of here. If he'd dropped down a mental sinkhole or some such thing, surely Clare would be along to fish him out once she'd figured it out. He hoped.

The sky above was a dull leaden gray from horizon to horizon. It hit Nate suddenly that there was no noise here other than what he was making, the rasp of his breath and the crunch of snow beneath his feet as he walked. It wasn't a dead silence, either. Just--peaceful.

Nate felt a pang of--something, a strange sort of regret. Had he been wrong, to seek this--this place out? As he'd reminded Clare, there were real dangers in messing with the subconscious. You could disturb things that weren't meant to be disturbed. And being here felt wrong. As if he were trespassing in a church or something.

Wondering at the oddness of his own train of thought, Nate shook his head and kept walking. "Hell of a time ot have second thoughts, Guthrie," he muttered.

Distances weren't staying constant, he soon noticed. He'd be three steps away from a tree one second, four steps past it in the next. Whatever this place was, it wasn't meant to accomodate visitors.

There was a bigger break in the trees, just ahead. As soon as he noticed it, he was there, standing at the edge of the clearing and staring down at a large, roughly circular patch of snow that seemed much thicker than the thin layer coating the rest of the forest. The ground sloped gently down towards it on all sides, and Nate knelt down carefully at the edge.

The snow was covering something, maybe. He reached out to brush it away, but it was thick, heavy stuff, cold enough to make him wish that he dared visualize himself some gloves. It resisted being moved, too, and he had to put more effort into it than he'd expected.

The surface beneath was smooth and hard. More ice. He wasn't surprised to find such defenses here, even this deep in Clare's subconscious. Everyone hid things from themselves. This whole place, he suspected, was about hiding something. That much of the symbolism was obvious.

What he wanted to know was what lay beneath the ice. By the time he'd cleared maybe a square foot, he had to take a break. His body--astral form, whatever, was feeling the strain, interpreting it as aching muscles and labored breathing. He felt like he'd done four hours in a Danger Room. Whatever this was didn't want to be uncovered.

The ice was dull white and opaque. Nate leaned closer, laying a hand against it tentatively--and snatching it back instantly, shaken. Warm? When had the ice gotten warm? But the cloudiness started to clear, and Nate leaned forward again, fascination overcoming wariness.

What he saw, beneath the ice, was a hand. A woman's hand, from the shape and size, pale and unmoving, palm turned upwards as if in supplication. Swallowing, Nate went back to clearing the snow away, brushing upwards in the direction an arm would be if it were attached to the hand. Surely there was an arm. Disembodied parts were a little more than he could handle.

There was an arm, too. Pale skin, still, too pale to be alive. Maybe this was what was meant by skeletons in the closet. Corpses in the subconscious? Nate shuddered, but wrestled himself back under control and doggedly continued to push the snow away--

--and an image hit him like a searing burst of pain behind his eyes. A baby, asleep in a crib, and a woman leaning over to lay a light kiss on the child's forehead, her red hair falling forward and obscuring her features--

--and Nate jerked backwards, wincing. That had hurt. Another defensive measure? But that didn't make any sense. The image had been so idyllic, nothing threatening about it at all. Bracing himself for further flashes, Nate crawled forward onto the ice to keep clearing the snow away. Corpse or not, he wanted to see its face--

The heat coming up through the ice was unbelievable. Nate threw himself backwards, the part of his brain that insisted upon regarding this as real telling him to get back to solid ground right the fuck now before the ice cracked and he fell in.

He was halfway there when the hand smashed through the ice and grabbed his wrist. Nate swore frantically and tried to pull away, but it held on with a vice-like grip, fingernails digging into his wrist like claws. The pale skin he'd thought looked dead was glowing with an opalescent light--

And something reached in, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and hauling him out of the forest, back to the rooftop garden and his own body.

The transition left him gasping for air, half-blinded. Clare still had a firm grip on his left hand, and the right, the one the hand from beneath the ice had grabbed, was throbbing steadily. When his vision started to clear he looked down at it, not surprised to see bruises already rising. Reality on a mindscape was a double-edged sword. The body tended to take it a little too seriously.

Still breathing heavily, Nate looked sideways at Clare, who was pale and blank-faced, staring off into the distance as if she were a million miles away. "Well," he said in a slightly strangled voice, and was unutterably relieved when she looked around at him, her eyes still a little distant but more or less focused on his face. "Remind me to take your father's advice seriously next time. Your subconscious is not a friendly place." He wanted desperately to ask her if she'd seen everything he had, if she understood what it all meant, but that would have to wait until he finished catching his breath.

Clare shook her head. Her face was still curiously devoid of expression. "His advice," she murmured in a low voice. "I wonder if he knew." Nate blinked at her uncomprehendingly, and she tilted her head at him, a faint, strained smile curving her lips. "There's something in my mind, Nate," she said simply, and Nate felt like his insides had gone hollow, as if the earth had dropped out from under him all at once. "And I think it's been there long enough to make itself at home."

to be continued...

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