Nathan and Tatiana, Saturday evening

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Tat comes to visit again. This time, she winds up having something of an epiphany.


They'd had him up and moving around that morning, and to say that it had been extremely uncomfortable and left him utterly exhausted would be... one hell of an understatement. Nathan had collapsed back into bed, unconscious almost before he could take the painkillers Amelia had offered him, and had slept, heavily, for the rest of the day. The prime-time Olympic coverage was on when he finally woke up, which told him just how long he'd been out. Amelia reappeared with another serving of what passed for dinner when you were just getting back to solid foods. He was picking at it, trying to convince himself that yes, he should eat, when Tatiana appeared at the door.

She probably should be doing other things. Getting ready for school to start, for one. Helping Angelo. Helping anybody. Nate didn't need another shadow, not when a billion people were watching over him already. So she was hovering. Not literally, even though some people probably would be doing that, but just... hanging around the door. Not all stalkery, but she just... couldn't quite believe he was okay. And that he was back. When she saw him look up, she took an involuntary step back, not quite sure if she should actually talk to him.

Nathan gave her a lop-sided smile and waved his spoon. "Come in, rescue me from the.... I think it's pudding. I hope it's pudding."

She wasn't quite sure what to say, so she forced an awkward smile, her thumbs hooked on the pockets of her jeans. "Looks like pudding to me. If it's not, then just use your imagination." She didn't sit in the chair somebody had put by his bed, instead just standing... awkwardly.

"Still feel like crap?" She had to admit, she had a way with words.

"Little better tonight. They had me doing laps of the infirmary this morning - I wound up sleeping all day." Nathan wrinkled his nose, then forced himself to take a spoonful of the pudding of doom. "I've come a long, long way in a week, as Amelia pointed out. It could have been a lot worse." Should have been, really, given his history of head injuries. Not to mention the near-drowning. He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though.

"Yeah." That one was almost a whisper, and Tat was getting pretty damned good at staring at the carpet. "'Coulda been." She didn't say more then that, not just then, too wrapped up in the 'could have been's. It was a good thirty second before she blinked, and sucked in a breath, realising she'd been quiet for too long. "So. How're the Olympics going?" Small talk, she could do.

"I don't think I've ever watched competitive canoeing, before," Nathan said, shifting on the bed with a wince, then offering Tatiana what was meant to be a reassuring smile. "There could be worse things on that screen, I guess."

"... Can we not talk about what's worse?" The words kind of lept out of her mouth, and her lips pressed into a line. "Sorry. You're doing okay, which is what I came to see, so... I could, like, get my books together. Or something." She looked back towards the door, that seemed like such a alluring escape.

Nathan eyed her. Assessed his own energy level. No, not likely to fall asleep mid-sentence. Which was to be avoided, he suspected, in the conversation they were about to have. "Tatiana," he said, more gently. "Sit down."

She sat abruptly. Heavily, actually, almost with a thump. "What?" She wasn't quite glaring - no, her brows were knit and she was chewing on her lip. Thinking, then. Wondering if maybe she could sneak out the door if she lulled him to sleep- Something. Whatever. "I have work early tomorrow." Which she did, but it was only eight PM.

"I think you and I need to have a talk." Nathan shifted on the bed again, trying to find a more comfortable position. There really weren't any, not on these beds. Not with this body, you mean.

He was silent for a long moment as he tried to think of the right words to say. "I think... I want you to know that I'm sorry. I didn't land myself here deliberately, or out of carelessness-" Although not checking his six while he was tied up with Saidullayev had been a pretty stupid thing to do. "-and contrary to popular belief, I don't wind up in the infirmary every second week. But this was... pretty bad, even by my standards." He looked up at her, and there was a flicker of something very bleak in his weary grey eyes for a moment. "I know some of the possibilities that would have been going through the head of anyone waiting for me to wake up. Three weeks of that..."

"I'm glad you woke up." She looked down at her hands, and her mouth tightened again. "So, we're good, right?" Easiest way to cut this conversation short. She was a ball of tension, her shoulders almost hunched they were so tight. This wasn't about her. He was okay, Rachel was okay, and he was just her boss and any sort of- whatever that she had after her dad-

God, she just wanted to get out of here.

Part of him wondered if he maybe should let her go. But if he let her go, they weren't likely to have a chance for this conversation anytime soon, and she was the type to bottle things. That being the understatement of the year... "Well," he said, not quite lightly, "I hope we're good. I'd like us to be good. You mean a lot to me, Tat." The little catch in his voice surprised even him. Amelia and her damned comments about head injuries and mood swings. "I want to be there for you, when it comes to... well, anything you need me for. I know it might be hard to believe that I can be, when something like this can happen. But still."

The staring was something new... ish. She was looking at him, like she was about to burst into tears, or like she was going to yell at him -like she couldn't decide which way to go. "I-" She said that one word before she pressed her lips together. "I'm okay," was the only thing she could come up with, her voice embarrassingly small.

She wished she knew what to say, knew how to bluster past this so it wouldn't be some kind of Hallmark moment, except if it was that they'd be smiling and hugging and he'd have recovered from brain cancer or something caused by his evil twin, and she'd probably be pregnant.

He was tired, even if he wasn't drifting off in the middle of the conversation, and he hurt, and the slightly forlorn sense that he'd maybe blown it here wasn't going away. He tried to smile. "Well, I know you're an impossible tough cookie..."

That got a snort and her rolling her eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?" Good. Off the... the subject. That subject. That she didn't want to talk about.

Oh, yes. Walk right into it. I am not mentally spry enough to do much leading. "You want to be totally self-sufficient," he said. "Or maybe... you just feel you have to be."

Oh, but she didn't like where this was going, either. "... I do have to be." Her brows rose as her head tilted towards the TV. They were recapping the riding competitions, and- "Wow, I wish I was from Canada, right about now." Subject change? Possible success.

"You shouldn't be dependent, no. But you don't have to be so... guarded." Nathan watched the television for a long moment, taking three careful, deep breaths - Amelia had reminded him he needed to do that regularly, however much it hurt his ribs. "I've lost so many people in my life," he said after a moment, his voice lower than it had been. "I have this whole...legion of dead friends and family. There are times I wonder who I'm going to lose next. But the thing is," he said, looking back at her, "the key is, it just makes the people who are still here so much more important to me."

"My mom said that my dad died. When we were small, right? Me and my sister. I was still a baby." Her mouth was back in that line again, her eyes on the floor. "He didn't, though. Everybody in the neighborhood knew. He hit the road, because my mom was such a-" She swallowed. "So I watch out for myself, you know?" Her eyes flicked up to his. "I'll still keep- I mean, I'm not going to stop helping with Rachel," she said, wondering if he was worried about that. "So. I mean. And I'm glad you're alright." Too glad, probably.

She didn't realise she was kind of half-babbling, that not a whole lot of what she was saying made sense.

Nathan just gazed at her for a long moment, and finally, what he needed to say came clear. "Tatiana," he said calmly, "you could stop helping with Rachel. You could never speak to me again. And I would still care about you, and do whatever I could to help you."

She stared at him with wide eyes. "... What?" Not really the most eloquent of responses, but she looked like she was poleaxed, to be honest.

"You heard me." He stuck his spoon back in his pudding. "There aren't any conditions. You don't have to do anything for me. You don't have to acknowledge my existence. You could run right away from my accident-prone self right now and never come back, and it wouldn't change a thing for me."

And then, much to her horror, she started to cry. Tatiana buried her face in her hands, hiccuping. She didn't know what to say - thank you wasn't right, and neither was protest. But she didn't have to do anything.

She didn't have to do anything. Tatiana, who worked three jobs while she was in high school, who'd started acting like an adult when she was fourteen and working full time during the summer for the bodega down the street just so she could pay her mom rent, didn't have to do anything. She'd been going to a vocational high school so she could get a job right out of school, and college wasn't even a possibility.

And now here was this guy, this guy who'd just about died a couple of weeks ago, saying she could just totally flake and he'd not walk. That was why she was crying, as much as she wish she wasn't.

It was something about this place - these people, they didn't want anything from you. They wanted you to be happy, to thrive, and that was it. Tat hadn't believed it when she'd come here - she'd been waiting for some sort of 'join our cult!' or child labor or weird hippie something or other, but it was this. It was just this, and she wasn't even sure what to do besides sit here, next to the bed of her boss, and cry and get a headache.

"Don't cry," Nathan said gently, his own eyes stinging. His shields were none too good right now, for obvious reasons. "Just... don't forget it, either, okay? I always sound so damned cheesy when I start in on trying to explain these things... just let me prove it, all right? Actions speak louder than words and all."

Let me prove it.

Like he had to earn her trust, or something. Like he had to earn anything. If anything, it made it worse, and she waved a hand at him to try and be all 'I'm okay!' but ended up just hiccuping and finally looking up at him, her voice a croak, her eyes red-rimmed. "Y-You don't- I beli-eve you-" Talking was, apparently, not a huge priority.

"Yeah, well. This is one of those things you make true day by day." He rubbed his eyes, wishing the headache would stop coming on like a speeding train. He really needed to never fracture his skull again. "And you make it so easy, Tat. You demand so little and you give so much. I just want to see you happy. You deserve to be."