howmuchtrouble | penance } { ic inbox

[he laces their fingers together, and looks away, down at them rather than her. and despite the fact that she's kind of sort of given him a pass, he can't help but tell her:] I didn't realize there was a time limit on the whole -- whole thing.

I figured. Or ... I hoped.

[She wants to say that she believes that Nate didn't know how reckless he was being. But at the same time, given everything they've recently been through at home, she'd be lying if she said there wasn't a nagging piece of doubt, that Nate was off making choices again that he wasn't prepared to tell her about.]

[he glances up at her, briefly, before looking away again just as quickly]

Look, I know I maybe some questionable decisions, sometimes, and maybe I've been leaning a little hard into that, here, all things considered, but. [he shakes his head] I figured I could keep going back until I ran out of blood, and I still had a couple vials and a lot more friends in there that needed help.

[With that look, she knows she said the wrong thing, but she couldn't say for sure, and that's the thing that bothers her. She's still off-center with their relationship, as much as she loves him, and she's scrambling to find her way back to equilibrium, for better or worse.]

I know. I wasn't ... I wasn't judging.

[If she had more blood to share, she might have tried to save more. She might have tried to save him. But everything got so messy.]

It's just hard to tell here. You want to believe that people are making their own choices but you can't always be one hundred percent sure.

No, I just -- I wasn't ...

[he didn't think she was judging him -- or maybe he did. or, probably more accurately, he's judging himself. he should have been more careful. it's not just about him and his redemption anymore. doubly so when the tips of his fingers are stained black, now, and he's desperately desperately trying to tell himself it's just ink from all the notes on torture he wrote]

[but anyway. he exhales a heavy breath, shaking his head]

But no, me screwing up was all me. [a beat] I've been trying so hard to do the right thing, since I got here. And that ... [he trails off, before muttering to himself:] ... yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this.

Is it possible to do the right thing when every decision is a rock and a hard place?

[It doesn't seem like, to her, that there is an upside, no matter what decision you make. A man had to die to get them back. There is no choice where someone doesn't get hurt, and part of her is struggling with that.

She wants to believe that there might have been another way, but they didn't have time, and Emmanuel was willing enough.]

It seems like every choice we're given here sits on a sliding scale of making things worse.

[he knows what happened to Emmanuel, what he did to get them out -- Bela told him. he can't say he's not grateful. he can't say he's not guilty. maybe that's why the stains on his hands won't come off]

Yeah. [his fingers twitch a little under hers, as he struggles with the urge to curl his hands into fists, frustrated] Yeah, you're not wrong. I just -- God, I hate this. I hate that this place just ... [fucks everyone and everything, all the time. and yeah, he gets that that's to be expected, considering where they are, but]

If I didn't already think God was a dick ...

This would definitely be evidence.

[As if the entire Bible wasn't enough. Who sacrifices their only child like that? More than once for that matter.]

But we'll figure a way out of here. There has to be something.

Yeah. [a long pause follows, and then he repeats:] Yeah, uh.

[about that]

[he should probably tell her the truth -- she deserves to know that he doesn't make it out of Libertalia alive. but he also doesn't want to hurt her or to drive her away now, when he's feeling so fragile, when he needs her]

[he might need some prompting here]

[Elena watches him, waiting for him to continue, her stomach sinking more and more with each beat of silence.]

Yeah, uh what?

[she can probably feel him flinch preemptively and in slow motion -- just a slow tensing of all the muscles in his body]

I don't get out of here. Not unless I'm going in the opposite direction.

[not unless he manages to redeem himself -- or something. he's not really sure how that would work, if and when it turns out that this isn't really home, but that's a moot point. what he's getting at is that, as far as he knows, this is it. he's dead.]

Edited (what is html?) 2022-03-23 20:05 (UTC)

[Elena usually has a pretty good poker face. You have to, when going up against dictators and dangerous men, trying to get answers to important questions. But finding out her husband's dead has a way of breaking through her usual calm exterior, and then scrambling to put it back up again.

No wonder he had so many questions about how she died, why he was so panicked to see her here in the first place. Some things make so much more sense while the rest becomes harder and harder to accept. She doesn't want to believe that she and Sully are too late, that Nate dies because they couldn't get there in time.

And inevitably, some of that turns to guilt and turns inward, that she wasn't fast enough, that she wasted too much time being angry about things that really didn't matter, in the grand scheme of things. Because there's being angry that your husband hid his brother from you and there's your husband being dead because you weren't there to help him.

(It's irrational, because she knows even if she was there, there's no guarantee that she could have stopped it. But at least she could have tried.)

Eventually, she takes a breath, closing her eyes and trying to reschool her features to something calm and put together, but in the end, all she can come up with is:]

I don't accept that. That there are no other options.

[he shakes his head. it would be nice if, somehow, Elena could get home and remember this and somehow save his ass, but he's not holding his breath. he's had almost a year to be resigned to his fate]

Rafe caught up with us, Elena. Sam, he -- [well, that's a whole other kettle of fish, considering that's also when he found out Sam had lied to him. he's wisely going to hedge that part, though. Elena has enough of a grudge against Sam already. she doesn't need help] -- he pushed me off a cliff, to save me from a bullet. I don't know if Rafe got a piece of me, regardless, or if I drown when I hit the water, but ...

[but he's dead. as far as he knows, he's dead]

[Nope, nope, nope. Not good enough. Unacceptable. She tries to hold firm in that resolve, find a reasoning out of it, but it's hard. It's hard to argue with falling off a cliff, or drowning. It's hard to argue with the fact's presented.

The determination begins to crack, and as much as she wants to try and muster up the energy to be angry instead of sad, it's hard. Her eyes start to water and she tries to blink it away.

They're supposed to do this together. How can they manage this together if in the end she has to leave him behind.]

I'm not just going to leave you here, Nate.

[for a moment, he looks like he has something to say. for a moment, it's poised on the tip of his tongue and then it's gone. he ends up shaking his head, instead, looking away from her, briefly]

Yeah. Okay -- yeah.

[except that's a lie. that's going along to get along, because he knows this is killing her and he doesn't want to hurt her anymore than he has a hundred times over by this point. he'll just let her believe she can do something to change his fate, and when the opportunity to get out of here comes, he'll push her into it without giving her the chance to look back. it'll be like when they first met, when he left her on that dock]

[he's not going to stop and think about the fact that that really didn't work out for him]

[She would point out that that worked out pretty well for him. He married her. But that also means she's wise to his tricks at this point and when he looks away, she knows he's placating her.

But placating her is better than fighting her. She'll pretend the rest isn't there, at least for a little while longer. She steps closer, brushing a hand against the side of his face.]

Whatever you think you deserve, Nate. It's not this.

[he has done a lot of shitty things to a lot of people]

Even with all the times I've hurt you?

[most notably]

That's between us to figure out. Not for some omniscient being to punish you for.

[A third party shouldn't be getting in the middle of their marriage.]

And even with all those fights, they're not things that deserve torture.

[maybe. but he let Eddy get eaten by the Descendants. he let Kate drown in quicksand. and so on and so forth. there's a lot, beyond just her, that Nate isn't sure he doesn't deserve some kind of comeuppance for. this is just karma, right? this is what happens to bad people]

[it's like he told Schafer -- everything he touches turns to shit]

[on the plus side, though, he's at least willing to accept her not-quite-absolution, and so he nods, this time a little more convincingly] Yeah, I -- okay, yeah.

[he's so articulate]

[She'll take it. Their relationship is the only one she's really worried about at the moment. She'll figure out the rest later.]

Are we good?

[exhaling a breath, he nods more times than is probably necessary, and squeezes her hand]

I'm good, if you are.

[please say that they're good]

We're good.

[They're uneasy, but they're good. She'll figure out the rest.]

But I do feel like I want to get very drunk though. Want to join me?

Edited 2022-05-10 01:32 (UTC)

[Nathan blows out another breath -- one that he'd been holding there for a second, while waiting on her answer]

I thought you'd never ask. [he glances towards the door] We going down to the bar, or should I go grab something and bring it back?

Bar.

[Elena nods as she takes his arm to lead him towards the door.]

Time to get out and about with the people.

[And with that, they go to get very drunk.]

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