It’s not as casual a touch as is usual with Rieke, who is, almost always, all arms around shoulders and impulsive hugging, lingering warmth even after their touch has retreated. The way their thumb barely brushes against Anais’ skin screams restraint and hesitation.

(It reminds Anais of those first few times, back when they’d agreed to try and be friends. When neither of them knew what was too much, where the boundaries were, so they wove over-cautiously around them until they could finally relax.)

“I’ve been thinking,” they say. “About what you said last week.” Their voice is soft but stilted, and Anais knows right then that they’ve been psyching themself up for this conversation since the start of the evening, probably even longer. That’s what makes her bury down the ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything about it’, the ‘I promise, I promise I’m not expecting anything from you’, the explanations and reassurances and excuses that were threatening to burst out. Anais presses her lips into a line and nods, bracing themself for what they had expected from the beginning.

It’s only the memory of Rieke’s tentative ‘I don’t wanna lose you either’, hesitantly said before she’d left, that keeps her thoughts from spiralling out of control into the idea that she’d fucked up beyond repair.

(And it would have been unfair of her, unfair to them, to carry on feeling the way she does and hide it from them; she has not wavered in that belief.)

Rieke’s fingers twitch but they do not pull their hand away, and they cast their eyes down, avoiding Anais’ gaze. She starts to open her mouth, looking for something to say to make it easier for them, but the thick lump in her throat is impossible to swallow.

“Ugh. How do I even say this?” they start, forcefully exhaling and frowning, scrunching their face, and somehow the expression helps ease the tension a little; they don’t seem upset with her, at least. They finally pull their hand back, throwing a side glance in Anais’ direction before looking away again. “You know I’ve never really been in a relationship, yeah?”

That is… not new knowledge for Anais, but certainly not where they’d expected Rieke to start. She quickly nods and hums her assent, encouraging them to keep going.

“And that you’ll have to guide me through it a lot of the time.” They avoid looking at her still, posture stiff, and bite their lip as soon as the words are out of their mouth.

You’ll have to—?

Anais blinks a few times as the words register.

“Are you trying to talk me out of something?” she tries to tease, tries to match Rieke’s usual casual tone. Rieke quietly chuckles, and there’s no hiding the soft smile on their lips as they recognize the attempt, but they don’t take the bait.

“Nah, I’m just saying. I don’t have the faintest idea how to do any of this.” A pause. “And there are probably a lot of things I can’t give you even if I would want to.”

“Rieke, I’m not expecting you to give me anything.” She hopes that sounds the way she intends it to sound; that they don’t owe her anything, that she only wants from them what they’d readily give.

She thinks it does when they finally meet her eyes, a soft look in them that mirrors the tone of their voice, chestnut brown hiding what looks very much like uncertainty. Over the past year, Anais has gotten closer to uncovering something akin to vulnerability in Rieke; still rare, quieter conversations that leave an aching warmth behind her ribs when they end, moments where they try (and don’t always manage) to find words instead of chasing them away with jokes and quick retorts.

That same aching warmth spreads through Anais’ limbs now, easing away the tension and fear and worry. You’ll have to guide me through.

“But… you’re saying you want to?” she ventures, almost timidly, finding her voice when Rieke doesn’t say anything else.

Syd is half asleep already (and no wonder). It’s the only time they could ever be described as looking peaceful, with their head resting on Rieke’s chest; it’s not cuddling, not exactly—they continue to insist on their dislike of it, thank you very fucking much—but there’s definitely a closeness and a sort of easy… tenderness to it. Somehow.

They look—

Yeah.

Without really thinking—their mind is elsewhere; their eyes on the ceiling, on the void, unformed thoughts swirling around like moths—Rieke runs their fingers through Syd’s hair, dragging their nails lightly along their scalp. Syd doesn’t react to it, but they don’t complain, either, and in Syd language that means it’s definitely not unwelcome.

It goes on for a little while; the quiet and the thinking and the soft touches. Soothing, in a way. But when Rieke slows and then stops, Syd—who seems to have fallen more than half asleep by this point—makes a sound in apparent protest, and Rieke laughs under their breath.

“You like that, then?” Rieke asks, quietly, lips curling into a smile.

“Shut up,” comes the response, because it’s Syd, and there was nothing else Rieke would have expected them to say (except maybe “fuck off” or some variation of that), although there’s hardly any bite to it this time. The smile remains, and they say nothing in return, but resume the motion of running their fingers through Syd’s hair.

And it’s… nice. It’s really, surprisingly nice, actually. Nice to not have to talk, to just be with them like this.

It's not a surprise (it shouldn't be a surprise). Their relationship (is that the word for it?) isn't (hasn't been) just about sex, and it's not the first time Morgan has stayed over at Eva's apartment since this (whatever this is, there's no rush to name it, not when it feels good) started between them.

But Eva is still surprised. She's surprised because, well, they didn't even have sex last night, for one. She was too tired, too tired after an endless day at the station and the warehouse and dealing with Rebecca and a million other things, but Morgan had walked her home and offered to stay anyway, offered to stay even when Eva had told her she was only going to sleep.

She's surprised because Morgan is lying there awake, next to her in bed, looking up at the ceiling. Eva has just woken up and she has no idea what time it is (if she had to guess, if she absolutely had to guess, she would say 3am) and it's clear Morgan hasn't slept at all (she never does) and there's something uniquely beautiful about the way the moonlight outlines her features, cool silver light like her eyes.

Eva's hand rests on the bare skin of Morgan's stomach and it's warm, warm, warm.

A hum of assent is the only answer, not that Eva had been expecting a different one. It hadn't been a question, just an observation. But there's still something nagging at her mind because it's, just, well—

“Aren't you bored like this?” A pause. “You didn't have to stay.”

Because yeah, it all might not just be about sex but surely, surely lying awake all night staring at the ceiling with nothing but a sleeping woman for company can't be too enthusing.

Morgan takes so long to answer that Eva is almost sure she won't say anything at all, and she's almost lulled back to sleep by Morgan's rhythmic breathing and the pulse of her steady heartbeat under her hand.

“It's all so loud,” Morgan finally says, eyes still fixed on the ceiling—almost purposefully, one would say. “Everything, all the fucking time. But you're—” She shakes her head, sighs in frustration. “With you, it's quiet. Even when you're sleeping. It doesn't… hurt, or bother me.”

Another sigh, and she runs a hand through her hair: a common gesture (one Eva has found herself replicating more and more) and Eva knows what it means: how the fuck do I say this? 

“You just calm me,” she finishes.

Eva blinks. And then she blinks again. And there's something caught in her throat, there must be, because she's sure she can't breathe. The thoughts whirling in her mind are impossible to grasp; she just stares blankly at Morgan, breathing growing heavier, until she finally turns her gaze away from the ceiling. When she does, when Morgan's eyes meet hers, Eva sees them widen and that's the same moment she realizes there are tears in her own. 

“Shit,” Morgan says, quickly shifting, lifting herself up on an elbow. “Shit, did I say something wrong? Did I—” 

It's not the nicest thing to do, but Eva laughs then—and even if the sound is half a sob, Morgan relaxes at it. Even more so when Eva shakes her head.

“You didn't. It's just…” It's Eva's turn to look away now, gaze fixed on a corner of the bed and decidedly not on Morgan. The words feel like syrup on her tongue and she won't be able to get them out if she's looking at her. She forces a laugh. “You have to be the first person who's ever thought that about me. You know I'm not… I'm not like that. You said it yourself, I'm only a people person if it's about dissecting them.” Another little laugh. “Making people feel at ease isn't really my thing.”

But you, you, you—

God, she'd known. She'd known the effect she had on Morgan before this, of course, but she'd had no idea hearing her say it like this would have this effect on her.

“Sweetheart.” Morgan's voice cutting through her thoughts, firm and unwavering. The warmth of her palm on her cheek (her cheek that is wet with tears now), and then she's bringing her in for a kiss. A kiss that is soft and loving and needy and warm and has anyone, anyone ever kissed her like this? Like she's something soft, like she's something precious?

Has she ever wanted to be soft for anyone?

And none of that matters because all that matters is that she's crying and Morgan is kissing her and she's warm, warm, warm.

When they part, her cheeks are still wet and she buries her face against Morgan's neck, the woodsmoke scent in her hair comforting and overwhelming and the way their limbs wrap around each other almost like a blanket of soothing, warm darkness. It's raw and unsettling but for a while, there's only the sound of their breathing, and nothing else is needed. 

Later, later, much later (or perhaps barely a few seconds later)—

“Morgan?” Eva murmurs, and what she's going to say is terrifying, and she doesn't want to say it, but everything in her is going to burst if she doesn't. Morgan hums in question, and that's the only push she needs. “I think I'm in love with you.”

Silence. Not oppressive: understanding.

A kiss to her temple, a whisper at her ear. “So that's what this is.”

A laugh that is half a sob: a held breath released. “Yeah, I suppose so. Is that okay?” 

The knowledge that it is her extensor muscles that are making her want to die does not seem very useful at the moment.

And it lingers. They told her many things about how it would feel, how it would hurt, but they did not tell her how it would linger, like a phantom limb does. Like the ghost of her humanity manifesting as a sort of pain that is not pain, but something that has settled deep in the marrow of her bones.

After the pain has faded, after she has stopped screaming and wanting to tear her skin apart with her own nails—and she has the strength for it now, could do it if she tried, though she wonders if her own instincts would stop her from doing so—after all of it has subsided, she is… restless.

She hasn’t been allowed to see anyone yet. Still under supervision, watching for signs of anything that might have gone wrong. It has been—she pauses to consider—six days, she thinks. It’s not easy to tell the passage of time here, but this is what she has gathered from what the doctors and nurses have said. Have told her.

She has so many questions.

Some of them are answered, like when the time for her first feeding comes. She has spent enough time with the doctors and the techs—some of them she knows from her own focus on biology and medicine research—that they are willing to discuss things with her, treat her as one of their own. Talk to her about blood types and sources, about how her body will absorb the needed nutrients.

Most of her questions, though, they go unanswered. She spends most of her time alone.

There isn’t much in the room she has been assigned, and she knows that must be intentional. Low light. Noiseless. A slight clinical smell, faint enough to not grate on her raw senses. The fabric of the bedsheets feels rough and coarse on her skin but she hasn’t needed to sleep for the past three days, so she just… sits. Paces. There isn’t much else to do.

She tries to test her new sensory abilities, but it’s difficult to tell how different things are when her surroundings are so very plain.

She waits.

She waits and waits. Someone tells her she will be able to receive visitors soon; she nods. She waits until—

She frowns. She has started to recognize everyone who comes to see her before they walk into the room, the cadence of their steps, their voices, the heartbeats. But this time there’s another one. She turns her head, a little too sharply, a little too fast, in the direction of the door—it’s further away, but it is unmistakable. It takes her a moment to recognize it, to know why it catches her attention so immediately, but a second later she is sure. That easy stride, that speeding heartbeat. She knows before she knows.

Her own heart beats faster in her chest and this time she can not only feel it in her temples but hear it, too. And fuck, she is holding her breath; she has been holding it for far longer than she’d realized, and how odd to notice that she has not needed to breathe at all, how odd now to experience what she already knew, what she had been expecting.

Her mind continues to race at a thousand miles per hour until it goes quiet, dead silent, because a moment later—as soon as the door opens—the only thing she can feel is him.

She wants to say the first thing that hits her (though in reality it all hits her at the same time) is the scent, both familiar and unfamiliar—familiar in that she could never mistake it for anything, for anyone else; unfamiliar in that it is so much more, richer and deeper and just more than she had ever noticed before. The scents of mint and tea and petrichor, now underlined and made stronger with hints of jasmine and of things Eva does not know the name of.

If she were counting, she would then say the second thing that hits her is the way he looks. She hasn’t seen him in… over a week—who’s counting anymore?—and the sight of him is like a shot of adrenaline straight into her system, like a jolt of electricity that stirs her alive, sends her into overdrive.

If she were counting, she would lose count at that point, because then, Nate speaks.

“Eva,” he whispers, breathlessly, the sound of her name in his mouth—the feeling of it, she does not know how to describe it except that she feels it—as welcome as it has ever been. His heart skips a beat when he says it and she knows this because she can hear it. She can feel the worry radiating from him, somehow, though what exactly makes her notice it she would not be able to say, not for a long, long time.

“Hi,” is all she manages in return, just as breathless, but smiling so wide her cheeks hurt. Nate’s concern eases at that and he returns the expression, though his heart still beats like a hammer in his chest, the vibrations of it landing on Eva’s skin. Her eyes flutter closed for a second at the sensation.

When she opens them again, she takes a step closer towards him and then—the third, or fourth or fifth, thing she notices—oh. The angle is different. She’s, she’s taller, now. She’d noticed that, could not have failed to notice that, but it is now, here in front of him, that it really registers.

Well, it’s not that different, except that she’s not wearing heels—she’s not wearing any kind of shoes—and yet it feels like she is.

An adjustment, yes, but not a terribly difficult one. She just needs a moment.

She blinks, once, twice, and a chuckle escapes him when he realizes what’s going through her mind (even that sound is different, deeper, richer. She wants to hear it again). She returns the laughter, though. It’s okay.

She stands in front of him, motionless, for a beat longer.

And it takes a moment, it takes conscious effort—her heart beats faster at the thought of touching him, now, as it had once a long time ago—but eventually she reaches out and brushes the tips of her fingers down his arm, trailing down until she reaches his hand.

The effect is both instant and overwhelming: it is only Nate. Nate, the warmth of his skin and, and—and so many things she cannot even begin to describe, senses she is not used to, she does not know if it is touch or smell or hearing but what she does know is that it is him and she is drowning in it. The room they are in is gone. The sounds outside are gone, the clinical smell, the voices of everyone around them.

It’s just Nate.

And before she loses herself to it—she wants to, oh how badly she wants to—she has to ask. She has to. She has to know.

She is breathless when the words leave her, her eyes wide and holding his gaze, “Is—is this how it feels for you?”

Nate doesn’t answer; instead, he twines his fingers with hers and there’s a soft look in his eyes when he asks a question in turn. “How does it feel?”

“Just… you,” is all Eva can say. “Everywhere. I can hear you and feel you and I don’t, I don’t have the words for it. I don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s just you.”

The only thing here is—

is—

fuck.

The only thing here that seems alive and vivid is the image playing behind her eyelids of the apartment flooded with bright red smoke, the sounds of crashing and breaking, of Rebecca telling her to run, of Nate—

And a cold, cold voice that rings in her head, louder than every other sound.

She’s back outside in the rain. It soaks her to the bone, makes her shiver.

You are rather special, after all, Detective Navarro.

Why, why the hell did she think of coming here, of all places?

I do so prefer the quiet ones.

There isn’t enough air, she’s not getting enough air. She tries to gasp for it, to take deep breaths, but it’s not enough. When she opens her eyes the white walls of the apartment are closing in and her vision is blurred, hazy (not smoke, it’s not smoke, it’s not). A trapped scream tries to fight its way up her throat.

She wants to let it out. Scream. Thrash.

Tear her skin apart and climb out of her body.

This is not working.

This is not working—this won’t work.

She’s not going to be able to make it out of here on her own. Not out of the apartment, not off of the goddamn floor.

The sudden moment of clarity, tenuous and brittle as it is, spurs her into action.

Her phone. She pulls her phone out of the pocket of her jacket: her hands are still shaking, and it takes her at least three attempts to get hold of it. Once she has it, it slips between her fingers and clatters to the floor.

She flinches at the noise. She’s going to start sobbing again.

She flexes her fingers. Breathe. Breathe.

Eventually, she manages it.

For just a split second, she considers calling, then decides against it. That won’t do. She doesn’t trust herself to speak without bursting into tears again.

I'm at my old apartment. Can you come over?, she writes, hits send. Then a second text: Please.

The reply comes before she’s had time to lock her phone again: there in 2 seconds.

She loses track of time again after that, closes her eyes and would not be able to say, later, how long she spent like this. What is left of her rational brain tells her not more than a few minutes can have passed before Farah is already there in a whirlwind.

Alarm is evident in the way her eyes shoot wide open as soon as she sees her, in the way she's kneeling down by Eva's side faster than her (human, human) eyes can register.

“Hey, hey.” The words tumble out of her quickly, blurring together. “Eva, what happened?”

Farah has seen her cry before, she’s seen her desperate and distressed and upset, but she’s never seen her like this.

She examines her, the way she’s sitting on the floor with her knees held to her chest, the sorry state of her—clearly looking for signs of physical injury. When she seems satisfied she’s found none, she takes a breath: the alarm fades, but the concern deepens.

“What’s wrong? Did something—” Farah interrupts herself, purses her lips and waits for Eva to answer.

Eva’s throat feels raw; her thoughts scrambled, paper-thin. Connecting them, stringing them into something so complicated as language seems a monumental, almost impossible task. Just the thought of it makes her throat start to close up again.

She shakes her head. “Don't want to talk about it.” Speaking hurts, physically—even more than she thought it would.

Farah nods, as though having been expecting it.

She knows her well, after all.

They all do.

Farah reaches out, slowly, and lets her hand hover just over Eva’s knee. She doesn't touch her, knows better than to touch her, but it's close enough that Eva feels the warmth through her clothes.

“Do you want me to just sit here with you for a while? We don't have to go back home yet.”

Eva barely manages to choke back a dry sob at the mention of home, but unexpected relief washes over her all the same. Relief and gratefulness to Farah for putting into words what she certainly wouldn't have been able to think of. Not now.

She gives a quick nod. “Please,” she croaks.

Farah attempts a smile that manages to be warm despite the evident strain in it. She moves then, with a grace that Eva has envied before and which makes something in her chest constrict now, to settle more comfortably on the floor, legs crossed under her, facing Eva.

“Then we’re not going anywhere until you say so,” she says.

Soothing. Calming. Farah always knows how to be comforting.

“Thank you,” Eva sighs. Farah hums her assent.

With her here, real and solid in front of Eva, the red smoke and the crashing sounds and the voices seem to fade little by little into what they are: a distant memory, years old by now. Not real. Not something that can hurt her now.

(Except it lives under her skin, the consequence of it, the result of it, she’ll never be free of it—

Stop.

Stop, stop, stop.

Stop that thought dead in its tracks.)

A while later, Eva’s breathing still hasn’t gone back to normal. It’s still quick and ragged, shallow.

“Hey,” Farah speaks quietly, a low whisper that barely breaks the silence.

She waits for Eva to open her eyes—when had she closed them? How long has it been?—before speaking again.

“Give me your hands?” She says it as one would a question, extending her own, palms facing up.

Eva hesitates for a second—but only for a second.

The hesitation is instinctive, but the action is conscious. She places her hands in Farah’s, and Farah smiles at her.

With the warmth of the touch she’s reminded of the few times she’s done this before, in other circumstances.

Farah taking her hands and teaching her to dance, despite her initial, half-hearted protests.

Farah dragging her to celebrate her birthday because it was on the same day as hers and of course they needed a celebration; no, sneaking away with Nate to the library did not count, what part of it’s our birthday and we should have a party did she not understand?

Farah helping her stand up after a bad injury she’d sustained during a mission, the fear in her eyes eclipsed by the quick resolve to get her away.

She’s reminded of this, of all this. Of Farah’s liveliness and warmth but also of the way she always seems to understand how she feels, long before words are spoken.

Eva doesn’t quite manage to return Farah’s smile, but her lips twitch a little.

“Good,” Farah says. Her thumbs rub circles on the palms of Eva’s hands, and something soft in her eyes seems to make them glow golden, brighter than their usual amber. Something soft and sad and old, because as young as Farah seems, Eva is all too acutely aware (especially now, especially here, with a sting that doesn’t seem to go away) that she is still close to three times her age.

“Breathe with me?” Farah asks, before Eva’s thoughts can spiral too far in that direction.

Eva nods.

Farah breathes. Eva breathes.

It’s a deeper breath than any she’s taken since she got here.

They spend a while like this, until exhaustion finally settles in, weary and bone-deep. Until she’s staying here out of pure stubbornness, and when Farah quietly asks “home?” Eva does nothing but squeeze her hand and nod.

—

She tries then, she tries to adjust to the new information.

To move forward.

It’s what she’s always done. It’s the only thing that can be done.

She lets the rest of Unit Bravo know about the results (thinks for half a second about not saying anything, but she could never hide anything like this from them) and then refuses to discuss them at all.

It is what it is. If there is nothing that can be done to change it—and it has been made very clear to her that there is nothing that can be done, not about this—then there is no point in wasting time and energy thinking about it.

Because if she starts thinking about it, she’s not sure what she will do.

If she starts thinking about it, it’ll be back to the apartment, back to the rain, back to that other warehouse.

And if she starts thinking about it, she’s going to have to think about how all the reasons she had for wanting to turn in the first place are still there. They have not gone anywhere, except that now she has no way to deal with them.

She’s not sure if she feels numb or if she only wishes she did.

She thinks about it, anyway, whenever her gaze falls on the faint, jagged marks on her wrist, paler than the light brown of her skin.

For years she’d almost forget the scar was there, the memories associated with it pushed back to the deep corners of her mind. Now it seems to exert a gravitational pull of its own, drawing her sight to it without her permission.

She thinks about it whenever she remembers—and she remembers it often these days, can’t seem to pull the thought from her mind—that the blood in her veins is not her own. The whole of her body has been made into a foreign object; unrecognizable, enactor of violence upon itself.

The nightmares are worse than they’ve ever been.

—

It takes three days for Nate to bring it up: he’d been waiting for her to do it first.

He does it as gently as ever, as softly as ever. With a kiss to her forehead and hands seeking her skin, brushing down her arms. Perhaps hoping his touch would soothe the sting.

He seems almost apologetic, as though she could break at any moment.

Who’s to say she won’t?

“Joonam,” he whispers. “Will you tell me what’s on your mind?”

(Joonam, he calls her.

He calls her many things in many different languages, but this is the one he always, always comes back to.

Mi vida, she calls him.

Not as often as he does—she was never one for pet names—but often enough.

The thought forms before she can crush it: it seems almost cruel, now, that they’ve dug so deep to call each other my life when he will outlive her by an infinite amount.)

And the look in his eyes makes her want to cry all over again. He’s pleading with her, keeping the emotion from his voice but it’s clear in the way he looks at her.

Fuck, this won’t work.

She can’t keep doing this. She can’t do what she always does, not with this.

Because being with Nate has never been easy.

It has been many things—it has been love and passion and comfort and truth, but it has never been easy or painless. It has never been natural or effortless or uncomplicated.

They don’t fit together like that.

What it has been is a choice, constant and conscious. A choice to go against her instincts—her instincts that tell her to hide, to never stop moving, to raze what’s left and never look back—and open herself up in ways that leave her raw and exposed but so vibrantly, painfully alive.

(A choice that she’d been willing to make for the rest of eternity, even if it never got easier.

A choice that he makes for her, too.)

Poke around in the wound to dig the bullet out.

Her instincts tell her to pull back, and there are words on the tip of her tongue that she swallows down.

Slowly, she takes one of his hands in hers, brings it to her mouth to brush a delicate kiss against his knuckles.

“I will,” she says, eyes closed. If she opens them the words might not come out. “We’ll talk about it, I promise. Just—give me a little time, please. Just a little time.”

Nate breathes out a sigh that sounds like relief drowned in concern.

“Of course,” he says. “Anything you need.”

—

The water in the bathtub has cooled around them; the steam dissipated long ago.

Even in the cooling air, they have not moved in a while: Eva leans back against Nate’s chest with her eyes closed, his arms wrapped loosely around her as he presses sweet, barely-there kisses to the birthmarks on her shoulders. He follows paths he has mapped and memorized countless times before, ones that feel familiar on her skin.

Ones that should be soothing.

As slowly as ever, Nate lets his kisses trail up the side of her neck. They are soft, featherlight; his lips ghost over the multiple marks that have accumulated there before lavishing her with an attention that makes her shiver.

For the longest time, this was something he would not allow himself.

For the longest time, he would shy away from Eva’s neck as though burnt, and the first time he let her see the fear in his eyes as his fingertips traced the line of her throat is a moment that remains imprinted on her mind.

(She took his hand and pressed it more firmly against the side of her neck, against the beating pulse there. Gentle, almost as gentle as he always was with her—and always offering him the choice to draw back. He almost stopped breathing, but his eyes never left hers, and that single instant stretched out into moments, into something she still struggles to name.)

A lifetime seems to have passed since then.

He does not shy away from it now. Not now.

“I wish we could stay like this,” Eva murmurs.

Just this, right here.

A single moment, endless. One where nothing else matters or even exists. One where the thoughts that have been plaguing her have no power or importance.

“We can,” Nate whispers in return. His breath is warm, still close to her skin, and he follows it with another kiss directly over her pulse. “As long as you want to.”

She lets out a sigh. It would be so easy.

God, so easy.

So easy it’s terrifying.

The temptation to never talk about it again hasn’t gone away.

But thoughts become corrosive. They seep into every last piece of her sanity that she’s tried to keep safe. Into every dream and every waking moment until nothing, nothing remains untainted.

The way she flinches when she sees the scar, when she barely paid attention to it before. The way she looks at herself in the mirror and finds flaws she hadn’t noticed, the way she sometimes wants nothing more than to open her skin and drain out the blood to get it all out. Maybe that would help.

No, it would not be that easy.

“Not that long,” she forces herself to say. The words are always stuck in her throat, and they will not come out on their own. “Not forever.”

Nate’s kisses stop, and the briefest moment of tension tightens his embrace—something Eva might not have noticed if she didn’t know him like she does. But he speaks into the crook of her neck, tenderness the only thing in the softness of his voice. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

It has only been a few days since he’d mentioned it.

“I don’t think I’ll ever want to talk about it,” Eva admits. “But I have to stop acting like it’s something we don’t have to talk about.”

She sighs again, sinking further against him. Her own hands come to rest on his arms, wrapping them more tightly around her. “I just don’t know what to do. Where do we go from here?”

Nate hums, a soft sound she’s come to recognize as a contradictory mix of subtle exasperation and patience, tempered by love and concern. She’s been on the receiving end of it more than a few times. “We’ll get to that part. Let’s take it one thing at a time.”

Unspoken: For now, just tell me how you feel.

Also unspoken (because it has been spoken too many times): You don’t have to solve everything by yourself. You don’t have to solve everything right away.

He knows her too well.

It makes her want to cry, that he knows her this well.

“I just never thought about this.” Didn’t think it wouldn’t work. “I didn’t even consider it.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. Small. So fucking defeated.

Because if she can’t do anything—

“None of us did,” Nate says, and that cuts deep, too.

He does not have defeat in his voice like she does, but the barely concealed pain is enough to make her eyes sting.

The fact that he’s trying to conceal it at all.

For her sake.

Dammit, Nate.

Because if she can’t do anything, then what’s left?

(“Nate, I don't get to have a normal life.” She’d been trying not to raise her voice, to rein in the tremor in her words. Trying, and failing. “Not with this blood, not with these scars. Not with everything that's happened to me already. Do you think anyone can be normal after that?”

One of the many times they’d argued about this. He had tried, wanted to show her value in humanity that she could never see.

He’d turn back, he’d choose to be human, to be mortal, if only he could.

“Even if I could have that,” she’d added, more quietly. “I don’t want it. If this all went away, what do you think would be left of me?”)

She shifts in his arms, turns around until she can face him.

“I wanted this, Nate.” She lifts a hand to close her fingers around the pendant that hangs from her neck, the one she never takes off, the one he gave her. She closes them so tightly her nails dig into her palm. “I wanted us, like this, forever. I wanted it so much I don’t know how to be anything else anymore. Nothing else makes sense even if I try.”

Nate covers her hand with his own, both closed around the pendant. He hesitates before speaking, examining her with eyes that betray the depth of feeling in them, but eventually, he does. “I know nothing can dull the pain of having the choice taken from you,” he says, careful, too careful. He’s been through this. “I know that. I would give everything I have to spare you that hurt.”

“But I’m—” A soft breath escapes his lips, something that is not intentional, something that is far less controlled. “I’m not going anywhere. I will make that promise a thousand times over. It will still be… it can still be forever, for you. You still have us. You still have me.”

“And you’ll just watch? You’ll watch me get older, weaker, god knows what else? You’ll be okay with that? With watching me die?”

The questions leave her mouth like bullets, one after the other.

Harsh. Too raw. The things neither of them wants to hear.

She’s the one panicking, now.

She’s said this before.

And Nate flinches, flinches at the bluntness of it—she wants to take it back at that, even when she knows it has to be said—but it does not make his voice waver when he speaks. “I love you,” he says, as though that answers all her questions. “Nothing can change that. Every second you’ve chosen to give me has been something precious, something I have treasured, and it will continue to be, no matter what.”

One of his hands moves to tangle in the wet locks of her hair. To hold her in place, staring into the depth of his brown eyes, eyes that reflect back the same hurt she feels even if he will not say it.

“Before we talked about this, before you decided to turn, I—I knew I might not have you forever. I didn’t dare to hope I would, didn’t dare to think of it. But loving you is worth any pain that might come from it.”

Her throat constricts, and the emotion in Nate’s voice dulls the edge she’d imparted to her words. Of course Nate would say this. Of course he would think this, would feel this.

He would break himself to keep her.

He would break himself for her, without even a hint of hesitation.

(I won’t do that to you. She’d said that.)

She looks away, blinking to get rid of the tears that prickle at her eyes. She fixes her stare on the edge of the bathtub: gleaming, burnished copper misted over with condensation.

Instead of following that line of thought—she doesn’t trust herself to—she grasps at something else. Something that stabs with equal force at her chest.

It sounds like someone else speaking when she says, “I don’t want to be less than you.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the way he frowns.

“Being human doesn't make you less, Eva.” Nate is resolute, his voice firm even in its warmth, echoes of a recurring argument neither of them had ever won.

“But it does,” she counters, voice cracking and desperate, turning her face back to meet his eyes. “Don’t you see it? It does, and it will always feel that way. I already have to try so hard just to keep up. What happens when I can’t anymore? What happens when my body gives up, when I'm too slow, too weak to go on missions?”

Why won’t he see it?

She has tried. Tried to make up for her lack of abilities, for her humanity. She has tried to attenuate it, to make sure it does not become a burden.

She has learned combat from Morgan and Adam, spent hours upon hours in the training room with them until she can barely stand, until Adam smiles at her after a well-placed hit, until Morgan throws a towel for her to catch and there’s nothing but pride in the look she gives her.

She has studied the supernatural world in every way she can; submerged herself in it, let it coat every cell of her body and every neuron in her brain.

It is what she breathes.

And she’s been forced out of it.

“That still wouldn’t make you less, nothing could.” The affection, the love in his voice burns. “There is so much more to you than what you can do.”

She shakes her head.

“I swore I wouldn’t be a burden to this team. And you know how I am, Nate, I couldn’t bear—I don’t want to get left behind. And I will. You’ll keep on being who you are and I… won’t.”

The tears aren’t pricking at her eyes anymore. They are falling.

The words aren’t stuck in her throat anymore.

“Everything I told you I didn’t want, all of it, that’s going to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it. And I have this thing inside me that’s making it all happen and my body isn’t mine anymore. I don’t get a say in any of it.”

She leans forward to rest her head on his shoulder, seeking the comfort of his touch even when it won’t, it can’t be enough. Not for this.

She is instantly enveloped in his arms, drawing her closer against him.

“I’m sorry, mi vida,” she whispers against his skin. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he answers, quiet, almost too quiet, into her hair.

And there is a thought.

Because if there is nothing she can do—

But this is one she refuses to even entertain. To acknowledge.

I won’t do that to you.

When she opens her eyes, still bleary and sleep-heavy, he’s still sleeping: the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing makes his chest rise and fall under her, and the thick lashes that frame his eyes flutter lightly against his cheeks. His face is turned towards her, and one of his arms is still loosely wrapped around her, as though even in sleep he could not bear to let her go.

And he looks so peaceful. So lovely, no trace of tension in his brow and the softest smile on his lips. Eva could kiss him, wants to kiss him, the memory of the feeling of his lips against her coming back in full force and making her sigh softly.

By all rights, he shouldn’t look so at home here. Not here in her apartment with the sparse, modern furniture and the white walls and the technology (Tina had once said it reminded her of an Apple store, and Eva can’t in good honesty argue that claim). Not here in her bed that is only just big enough for him. Not here. The whole place is so much the antithesis of Nate as to be slightly funny.

But none of that had mattered, and it doesn’t matter now, and it will continue to not matter. She shouldn’t feel so at ease in Nate’s room in the Warehouse, either. Or in the antique library with a filing system that has no rhyme or reason. But she does, just as he does.

(Perhaps at ease isn’t exactly the right way to say it. She is aware of the contrasts. But those places feel like him, and despite those contrasts they are welcoming.)

A feeling starts to form in Eva’s chest like a soap bubble, delicate, and she tries not to look at it for too long, but the way Nate’s skin feels against hers makes it a difficult endeavor.

“You’re staring, darling.” Nate’s eyes are still closed and his voice sleep-heavy, but the soft smile on his lips has grown.

She didn’t notice him waking up. She never does.

“I’m admiring you,” she counters with a soft laugh. Now that he’s awake, she can’t resist him: she shifts closer until she’s fully on top of him and starts the task of leaving a trail of kisses along the line of his jaw, quick and smiling.

Nate laughs too and tilts his head back to give her better access to his neck, a request that she eagerly obliges. “You’re in a good mood today,” he says, hints of teasing seeping into his tone.

She gives one last kiss to his throat before lifting herself on her elbows to look at him. “Of course I am,” she says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It should be. “I got to wake up with you.”

The smile he gives her at that has no small amount of surprise in it and it makes his eyes crinkle at the corners; she could spend ages, ages memorizing the shape of his mouth, the color of his eyes. His hands settle on the small of her back, a warm, pleasant weight.

She leans in for a quick kiss to his lips but draws back before he can return it. “Look at me,” she says, laughing again. “What have you done? You’ve turned me into a sap.”

Before she realizes what’s happening, and before she has time to react with anything more than a brief squeal of laughter, there’s a blur of movement and he’s reversed their positions—she finds herself on her back with her head on the pillow and Nate hovering over her.

The laughter dies down at the look in his eyes—it’s not the hungry, lust-filled look he gave her last night, but something equally breathtaking. Adoring, even, something that has that soap bubble feeling growing and growing.

“I think you’re still wonderfully you,” he says, barely above a whisper, leaning in to brush his lips against hers. Always a tease, it’s not a real kiss: just a featherlight touch that sends shivers along her spine.

Not that there’s anything to hide, certainly not from Nate.

It’s just not a topic she finds herself coming to often. It’s tied to certain things she’d rather avoid.

And yet she keeps going, and Nate lets her. Lets her talk as much as she wants to. Needs to.

“Mostly as a way to be out of the house, you know? Rebecca wasn’t around except on weekends”—she pretends not to notice the way Nate winces at the mention—“and I was too old for nannies already. It was just me. So I just… found other things to do. Had school, joined a lot of clubs. And, well, dating. Fooling around a bit. Didn’t really know what I was doing.”

It hadn’t been so bad, though. She’d never dated anyone for long, but she’d never had bad experiences.

Bobby had been the worst, and that had been much later. Even that hadn’t really left much of a mark, except for the one on her career.

“I came out at sixteen,” she adds. “It wasn’t hard, not really. People here didn’t care too much. I thought they would—I thought it was the end of the world. But it was fine. Rebecca didn’t care, either. She was alright about that. But it still felt… weird. You know? Like you have something to prove to yourself.”

She shakes her head, lets it go.

But then a thought that has been nagging at her for a while makes its way up her throat before she can stop it.

It’s just, well, Nate.

Nate with his brown skin that seems to glow in the light of her open-plan apartment. Nate with his tumbler of expensive whiskey that he brought here himself (she wouldn’t have known what to buy, would probably not have had the budget for it); Nate with his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him, always.

Gorgeous, sweet, wonderful Nate—whom she’s very nearly in love with—whom she can’t get out of her mind and who is three hundred years old.

Three hundred.

She can’t wrap her head around it.

So, she asks.

“What was it like for you?”

She’s still talking to the glass. Still frowning.

“You’ve been alive so long, I can’t even imagine—back then, it must have been—”

It must have been so tough.

It’s one thing for her to be out in the twenty-first century and another very different thing for Nate to have been born in the sixteen hundreds. And she knows he’s had lovers before, knows he must have navigated it all somehow, and still—

But then rational thought catches up with her words, and she stops herself.

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to tell me,” she says immediately.

She means it.

She’s seen the way Nate looks whenever family comes up, even her own. Whenever his past comes up, and from the few things she’s pieced together—the carnival mirror, the few comments he’s made, him being in the Navy—she can’t blame him, wouldn’t even dream of pushing him to talk about it.

It must all be so raw. Her questions aren’t worth that.

“I’m just… curious about you,” she adds by way of explanation, echoing something he’d said to her once. “But if it’s too much, I really don’t need to know. I promise.”

She’s made that clear to him (at least, she hopes she’s made that clear). Whatever happened to him only needs to come out when he’s ready to talk about it. If he’s ready to talk about it.

Before she can lose herself in her thoughts, however, Nate tightens his arm around her.

“It’s okay. You can ask.” He smiles down at her and it’s strained, yes, but she can tell it’s sincere. (It’s there, in the way it reaches his eyes, warm and soft and sweet and she’s never had anyone look at her like that before). “I just… try not to think about it too much these days, about how it was. When you’ve lived this long…” He trails off.

“But it wasn’t easy at first, no. Not when I was in the Navy. I believe that’s when I first realized.” He gives a soft laugh, but there isn’t much humor in it. “It would have been difficult not to.”

“I tried to—” He shakes his head, as though thinking better of what he was about to say. She doesn’t press. “It didn’t matter so much after I joined the Agency, as long as I kept to interactions with other supernaturals.”

Something, something in the way he says that makes Eva think that’s not how it always was. She couldn’t imagine Nate forgoing human interaction entirely, Agency or not.

There’s a question on the tip of her tongue, but she knows it’s not the time to ask it.

Still, she wonders.

Why does he care so much? Why would anyone, after everything he’s been through? She hasn’t been through a fraction of that and she barely cares at all.

“Nate…”

“It’s just how it was. But I wasn’t always unhappy. I was lucky, for the most part; luckier than I could have been.”

There it is. She’s learned to read this, too—she wouldn’t call it deflection, and she knows he’s not lying, but it’s a very clear indicator that the topic is over.

It’s that tension in his smile.