2019-05-31 - Did You Feel That?

It was two days after the now-whispered event at the theatre, the fallout of that unknown to Nicholas because he was on an enforced two-day rest from his supervisor. It seems that, soon after he left the hospital after being patched up, the duty nurse made a very upset, very motherly phone call to her cousin, the County Emergency Services supervisor. It was a short but emphatic berating and dressing down of the man, as he was informed, with no room for misinterpretation, that the treatment of that nice boy Grenholm was in no way acceptable the hours that they are working him. Thus, Nick's cell rang shortly thereafter with the semi-believable concern for his health and that he should take a few days.

Thus, tonight, he was camped out on the porch swing, laid out on it, actually. Beside him on the floor of the porch, was a tumbled hardback book as well as a half a bottle of rum. His right leg was bent at the knee, his right hanging off the side-end, and he was almost entirely draped with a quilt. The kind that sons are handed down by concerned mothers, when they move out.

Harper pulls up in that damned-spooky Prius and parks, gathering a canvas bag of miscellaneous items and getting out of the car. She doesn't tend to lock her car - growing up in a small town and all. Even this small town. She's still in her work clothes, dress and cardigan, dressy ankle boots, bare legs. She's headed up the walk to the porch when she spies the sleeping Nicholas on the swing. She doesn't try to be any more quiet than usual, though she's not a loud-stompy sort to begin with. Librarian. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Once she gets up to the porch she stands for a long moment watching Nicholas sleep, a musing expression settling over her features. Finally she takes a slow breath and begins 'unpacking' the canvas bag. A tall, heat-insulating thermos. A thick novel, soft-back surprisingly. And whatever else is in the bag stays there for the time being as she sets it on the ground beside the swing. She carefully balances the thermos and book on the armrest of the swing, and then goes about quite stealthily and gently lifting Nicholas' head so she can slide onto one end of the swing and let his head drop gently back atop her lap. She makes no effort to wake him, takes a moment to re-arrange the quilt so he's thoroughly covered, then opens the thermos and pours something into the cup that screws on top that smells both chocolatey and cinnamony. Next, she picks up her book - entitled 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski - and thumbs to a spot a quarter or so into the pages and begins to read, the book resting just atop the quilt where it is not in Nick's face. She takes a slow sip of the beverage and continues to read, one hand finding a lock of his hair near his ear and ever-so-lightly, gently fingering it, tracing, soothing unconsciously.

Nicholas never stirs, she is that good and careful with her hands as she lifts him slowly, pivots her bent self into the seat where his head lay, and then turns her thigh into a pillow for him. A snuffle, a small jerk of his head, a murmur and then breathing once more. Nicholas is exhausted in more ways than he knew were possible, but still the valiant book-reading effort in defiance and denial to his condition. Nothing that she does would reveal the /why/ of his current situation... and with the event night's clothes in the wash or in the garbage, she might not ever catch much of a hint. That is, if it weren't for the anguish that she can feel in him. Actually, a better term would be 'feel rolling off of him'. Nicholas twitches, jerks in small ways. A nightmare.

Harper reads for awhile, her lap a comfortable enough pillow - likely moreso than the flat swing seat was. The snuffle, the murmur-jerk and she sends those fingertips around the curve of his ear gently through that black hair, soothing what doesn't need to be soothed. Yet. Harper was informed by Nicholas' place of work when she called about bringing dinner by that he was on medical leave. That sent her straight from work over, here and now. That he wouldn't call her and tell her himself about being somehow injured - well, let's just say that doesn't sit well with his librarian friend. She lifts her eyes from her book as the anguish from him begins to seep into her awareness and sharpens her gaze, unconsciously flicking on her Glimmer to gather a more astute observation. When he begins to have the kinesthetic proof of a nightmare, she reaches to the farther side of his head and soothes with a gentle palm running from his forehead back, slowly, repeatedly. "You're safe, Nicholas. Everything is okay." What was it she said in the pizza place? Nothing is okay and that's perfect? "Shush... relax." Her voice is soothing as a librarian reading a bedtime story. Quiet, breathy, gentle, /there/. "There's no glass," she adds in a whisper.

The words broadcast quietly but firmly into his dream-space, superimposed over the dream. The scent of chocolate and cinnamon and the faroff memory of her voice are there as well.

On the first contact of her mind to his, she would be opening a floodgate. A firehose of images and feelings that are unmistakable. There is a flash of blackness, of a drowning fear that one is in their last moments. There is a flash of the faces of the women in the pizzeria, emblazoned on his mind with anger and rage, of helplessness and failure. Then, there is the castle, the surrounding crossbowmen, the voices of the Troupemaster as he counted down. A flash of Harper's face, instant regret of not being able to save his friend. Then, another face. Green eyes, a soft smile, but those eyes hold a secret that he doesn't know yet. Anguish and loss, betrayal. Another jerk from his leg, involuntary, until Harper's touch and words cut through the darkness like a hand plunged into the deep to grasp at a drowning man's upstretched, sinking arm.

Harper's hand stills atop the side of Nick's head as the nightmare flows over her like a rising tide of crude oil. She grips the cup of spiked hot chocolate far more firmly against the armrest and cradles Nick's head protectively. "We stay together," she's saying now, on the swing and in his dream. "We don't separate. We all find solace there. Power." The images of the Castle's events run and shudder down her spine and she inadvertantly transmits a lightning flash of her own self into the middle of all the mingling images raising one hand and sending brightness out in all directions, striking down the walls of the castle, the burning walls of the pizzaria, the two dark haired women fizzle into puddles of sizzling acid. "Come back," she calls, like in the pizzaria. "Find my hand. We. Stay. Together."

In the castle, he stands in the center of a tornado, and in the middle of that tornado... is she. He laughs at the incongruity of it all. As the battle rages around him, she is there. Stay together. The laugh turns sardonic, pessimistic. A flash to those green eyes and the heart-slice of betrayal. Words that can be broken, that can break. Her words again, snapping to him like crystal clarity, the pizzeria, on the floor... finding her hand and.. Nicholas' eyes snap open and he jerks awake, almost spilling the hot chocolate in Harper's hand as he bolts to a half-sitting position, a hand instantly covering his eyes as he lets out a pained moan. A headache. "Harper?" he croaks, voice all sleep-destroyed.

Even through his defeated laughter, his pessimism, his loss of faith, Harper resists him ousting her or her words from his dreams. Stubborn, she dips her chin down and meets his gaze as she repeats those three words. Wind whips around her, her hair buffeted in her eyes and whipping around her face.

Nicholas jerks away and that sends the book that rested on his upper chest crashing to the porch with a thump and crunch of pages, splayed open, spine slightly rent. Harper manages to remove the hand that was around his neck and head quickly enough that he doesn't drag her with him when he sits up, her other hand holding firmly to the sloshing cup of cinnamon schnapps and hot chocolate. She chooses stillness now, letting him adjust to the waking world in silence, but then frowns when he covers his eyes and is so clearly in pain. "You're still injured," she states matter-of-factly, ignoring the explanation that should accompany him waking up to her there when she wasn't there when he fell asleep. Or the fact that she presumptuously invaded his personal space in what could even be described as a chummy way. The rosemary-mint of her shampoo scent mingles with the spicy hot drink she's brought to try to tease pain away from his thoughts, but it's too small a thing to do that. So she lifts the cup and pushes it into his hands, having noticed the whiskey bottle on the porch when she arrived. "Drink some of this," she urges. "It's not too hot. Just ... drink."

He stares wildly into the palm of his hand for a moment, shaking as the dream fades and leaves him in the moment. Still, she is right there, her voice right in his ear. "When did you get here," he asks after he has a moment to compose himself, remove his self-imposed blindfold and then look at her. Noting the book, he leans and picks it up, handing it to her as he tries to figure out what to say and how. "....yeah," he just admits, not willing to lie to her, even if it /will/ result in more care-taking. There is a long moment as he regards the Thermos-cup lid of drink, looking at her for a moment before taking it from her. Sitting up fully, Nicholas first sniffs, then sips the concoction. Two drinks later, he gives a satisfied sigh, "That's good. What are you doing here, Harps?"

"Not soon enough," Harper answers in response to the query of when. Not soon enough by far, her eyes say. She absently takes the book he hands her and stuffs it between the armrest and her hip with a scandalous lack of regard for its welfare given her profession. "Do you need medical aid?" She isn't sure if it's a concussion, an aneurysm, or something more esoteric like a fire that wasn't there. But she saw archers with strung bows. "I won't be okay with you sitting here and suffering." As she says this she's refilling the thermos-cup and offering it once more to Nicholas. "Yeah, it's pretty tasty, huh? I'm not so good at nursing skills, but a little cinnamon-hot-chocolate helps just about everything." What is she doing here? He earns himself that chiding gaze sidelong, then full-force as she turns her body a bit to angle slightly more toward him. "You were injured. You're on medical leave. And I had to find out from a dispatcher? Two days later?" There's a resentment there that just crosses the line of Bananas & Books. But she's a stubborn woman. The expression remains. "What the hell, Granholm?"

"I... did," Nicholas admits as he lays his head back, rubbing at the bridge of his nose for a moment before explaining, "Look. You remember the pizzeria? That shit that we didn't talk about, that -happened- to the both of us? You remember that? Well, I'll be fucked if it didn't happen again at the Shakespeare thing, okay? Only worse." Giving a few more moments for the headache to ease before he continues, starting from the beginning of the play until the crescendo of finding himself back in the theatre, bleeding and hurt. "So, I should've been dead," comes his dark whisper, sardonic and accepting of his fate, "By all rights, it was like we /all/ should've died."

Harper listens, her body language and expression open and non-judgmental. She doesn't look as though she's thinking up things to say as he speaks, relays, describes, argues. She nods simply when asked if she remembers, still quiet except to urge the little cup up toward Nick's mouth again. The things Harper thinks will help are not typical by any means logical to other human beings. "Should've-being-dead," she begins after long moments of silence have stretched out when Nick stops speaking. "... happens regularly. It's what Gray Harbor is ==" She waves her free hand in a loose circle as if searching for the right word. "-- /made/ of, built upon, steeped in." Then another long pause while she watches Nick's profile, his eyes, his expression, the little lines that form there when he expresses himself. "I'm glad you're still alive." There's a thrum to her voice. "Not everyone survives." Under her breath, "... don't. Not right now."

How she can sit there and be so openly non-judgemental to him when everyone else is exactly the opposite? That open-mawed gawp at her is thrust at with something that is deliciously cinnamony, and brain immediately orders his hand to take it from her as it's own before the brain can override itself with stupi...logic. Staring at the librarian for a long minute, he processes that and comes up with, "Then why won't anyone TALK about it, Harper? Everyone left that theatre like it was on fire, does that sound familiar to you? I had deep punctures to the back of my neck and the back of my left ribcage... I should've bled out." Whether he is going to allow her crazy self-talk to interfere or not, he sighs and stands up from the swing with a snort. Exactly like she was making fun of him.

Harper watches Nick gawp without reaction save for a sincere expression that holds her worldview in a nutshell. "I have a theory about why people don't talk about it. I don't know what's real, though, so it might be full of holes." Does he want to know her theory? She is left seated on the swing with the tossed off quilt as Nick rises to pace. There is no humor in her voice. Possibly briefly some inwardly directed derision. But no mocking or amusement. She crosses her legs at the ankles, her skirt primly tucked around her thighs.

"It's just," it only takes three seconds for him to turn and face her, staring and studying her as he weighs his own words, "What do you think happened at that pizzeria? Was it just a dream? Was I delusional with the fire, because we were both burned, I know that. And the window, I know I did that, so... I guess /I/ don't know what is real either, Harper. That is what is tearing my mind apart. I almost died the other night, and I don't know how I lived."

"I believe..." Harper begins, then hesitates, as if saying it out loud will cause him to ban her from his porch and eschew her banana bread forever, not to mention the books. Think of the books! She takes a deep breath and presses on. "That there are multiple.... worlds, realities, existences, lives... something." She uses her palms to slide down over the fabric of her skirt slowly, eyes down for the time being. "If there are actual injuries, but the rest flutters away like, I don't know, blinking your eyes a few times, then ... there are things that affect us that we can't completely know. It's been that way my whole--" Her voice breaks, goes softer. "-- life. Bad things happen. Bad people hurt us. People get hurt and sometimes die." Especially the ones she loves. "I'm glad you're not dead." she repeats. Then she asks on the tail of that, "What's bothering you most about that? Do you think you /should/ be dead? That you /deserve/ to be dead?" Because it doesn't sound like the manifestation bothers him as much as the lack of him dying.

Leaning against the porch upright, he folds his arms and sips at the drink as she speaks, contemplating her words like he were looking and auditioning elevator pitches of new religions. When her lips are done forming words, and she is instead intent on /him/, Nicholas stares at the porch. Minutes pass, and she might even feel him turning over the decision to lie to her. "I volunteered, Harps," comes the whisper finally, "They wanted just one of us, and I /volunteered/."

Harper's gaze snaps upward to find Nicholas' gaze once more and she slowly shakes her head, as if to change what has already transpired. "Don't do that. Dammit, Nicholas. Do not do that." She reaches for the thermos and unscrews the top to drink a few gulps straight from the container before setting it atop one of her knees. "I think--" She begins, almost as part of the appeal. "-- that people don't talk about it because they think talking about it will make it more real, more powerful. Better at hurting us." She swallows what she was going to say next and narrows her gaze as she watches him in his lanky lean against the raiing of the porch. "You sacrificing yourself won't make it all go away. Do you feel culpable for everyone's sins and mistakes?" Then again, "Do you /want/ to die?"

"I... don't know," Nicholas isn't ready to admit, but he cannot lie to someone who is so open with him, without any visible agenda. "It's been a long time, Harps, since I felt like I knew what was going on. Like I knew what direction the wind was blowing, on some days. What we went through was /real/, and I believe that firmly." Leaning toward her, he extends the lid-cup in his hand, "This is good, whatever it is. And yes, I know that about the sacrificing, but sometimes I feel like such a failure, Harper."

Harper lifts the thermos and refills the cup, whether that's what Nick meant when he extended it or not. More of the delicious, warm beverage fills the cup. She really listens, does Harper. Harper, the girl who hears more than everything. Different than everything. "The world is confusing, it's cruel, and it's dark. You don't have to know all the answers to live in it." Again, the words are oddly bereft of judgment. She's matter of fact with a dash of personal investment tossed in. "I believe it, too," she says, perhaps comfortingly, honestly. "Hot chocolate and cinnamon schnapps," she answers in the midst of all the philosophy. "We're all failures," she answers after a long, long pause. "It's what makes us human. You can't fight the failures. You can fight to get back up on your feet after they happen. And that's what you do. You /stay together/," as she said in the pizzaria - literally don't split up. "-- and you keep getting back up. That's how you can be strong." Then she adds so much more quietly, on the edge of her voice. "If not for you, for me." He doesn't owe her anything. It's presumptuous and selfish for her to say it. And, likely, she knows it because she takes another long drink from the thermos.

Nicholas waves off the encouragement with a tired sigh as he slumps back into the old porch swing, filling the seat beside her and propping his head in his hand as he swirled the drink. "Get back in the saddle, I know. I hear it all the time, believe me," he groans with the boredom of regurgitating something that he has heard over and over from all of the well-meaning Normals around him in his professional life. He listens to her words over again, resounding in his head as she reminds him of his actions in the Pew Pew. A wincing shut of his eyes, then a sigh, "You were right. The whole time. I couldn't see a thing, and you kept saying it. I should've listened."

Harper is a little more relaxed now than usual. A little more loose. She listens, but now offers a fledgeling smile that tips the corners of her lips upward just so. "You're a masochist," she announces, as if she just figured it out. "A masochist with a savior complex. You feel lost so you need to carry the weight of all the bad things that have happened. You need to save everyone else. And you need to hurt, to take all the pain. You /want/ to hurt because at least that's feeling something. I'll bet you can't tell me one thing that you've done right in the past year." She lifts her chin a little, confident and ... is that gaze affectionate? Leave it to Harper to have that string of words not sound like an accusation. And, perhaps her lips are a little more loose than usual due to the schnapps and her low alcohol tolerance. Her words don't quite slur, but her eyes are soft and warm as if she'd just asked Nicholas if he wanted a hug.

His forehead crinkles just a bit, just before he slowly shakes his head at her, concerned, "No... no, I really don't think so." And not in a denial way, but more in a confused-where-she-got-that sort of way. "I don't think that offering yourself for sacrifice in order to save a dozen-plus people is really a masochism thing, Ms. Sheets. I could look it up, but don't those people /like/ the pain to be an ongoing sort of thing? I just want it to end. That's not some pain-love, that's fatalism, sweetheart. I got it in spades."

"If they have a savior complex they do," Harper replies easily. He uses that nickname again and she can't quite place it. Maybe she's not making the connection between 'Librarians do it between the covers' and actual bedsheets. Maybe she thinks it is some sort of tease-jab at her failed saltwater ceremony. She screws up a little frown that furrows her brows, then pauses to listen. "If you want it to end, then ...." She contemplates this. "Yeah, that's fatalism. With an emphasis on the 'fatal'." She reaches over with the hand not holding the thermos and traces one of Nick's fingers that's wound around the cup, tip to knuckle to the place where thumb and finger meet, her touch lingering with the tiniest of sparks of static electricity at first touch. "You want to die. I don't want you to die. I win." She states this as if she'd given a wealth of rationale for her point-of-view. "You stay alive. And you start living a little." She dips her head down her gaze looking up and under to Nick's eyes. "If /I/ can keep going, /you/ can keep going." Is she challenging his right to feel like giving up? Likely without the schnapps she wouldn't be walking on such thin ice with a friend who values his boundaries and walls.

He looks at her with thinly-pressed lips, in one of those dark places where he doesn't want to smile, but when certain things are slipped in like a stiletto in between the plates of armor... it strikes. A tiniest upturn of one corner of his mouth. Though, that leaves him completely unsure if he agrees with her on this. After all, years of self-convincing can culminated in a slavish belief of the wrong outcomes. "So what do you think of what happened? We were burned. I think I screwed up, they wanted me to set a chair on fire, they were trying to convince me," he trails off, looking into the cup.

Harper pulls her hand back to her own lap and hmmms, then takes another drink from the thermos. "Let's think about that." What happened. "They wanted /you/ to light a match or find a flashlight or something. When you didn't, they set the place on fire. What do you think would have happened if /you/ lit a match? Something different?" She goes on without leaving him room to answer. "I think you were at a castle or something." How does she know that? "There were people with bows and arrows and they wanted one sacrifice. You /even/ sacrificed. Did they accept that? What happened?" She looks at him, perhaps a visual nudge. Does he see a pattern? This time she slips off the swing, hopping lightly to the porch from the few inches her feet dangle from the swing. Her skirt blouses out for a moment behind her ahe does so. She walks along the porch away from Nicholas, stepping carefully so as not to walk on the creases between planks of wood, arms out at her sides, thermos clutched in one hand. She pivots, meets his gaze if he's looking her way, and heads back the same way, balancing with furrowed-brow focus, then that warm smile of hers that holds nothing back. He can answer in his own time or not. She's in no rush.

The longer she talks, the more concerned he is getting as to how spot-on she is with her words. For a Crazy Harper, she is suddenly very lucid and targeted in such a way that it is scaring him. Doubt trickles, and fear rises, his ears starting to ring softly. He stares at her, "Harper... how did you know about the castle?" His voice is flat, bordering on suspicious, but there is enough built-up trust between them that he is watching her for her response. Carefully.

Harper stops perhaps a foot away from the swing, lowering her arms only to lift the one with the thermos and take a drink. Her feet are still one in front of another on the planks, like a tightrope, but she's watching Nicholas with that softened, searching gaze. "While you were sleeping--" She waves the hand with the thermos in a vague circle in the air. "I tried to talk you out. I think I saw what you were dreaming." Now he could have asked her about what conversation she is having when she asides and she'd answer with the same sort of forthrightness if it were a safe place and he was asking in a safe way.

He stares at her for a good few minutes before he leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, the cup cradled in his hands. Several minutes pass as he thinks this all through, "You could see that?" This is a revelation, a key point in everything that has come about, that has passed. "If you saw that, tonight? Then you must be able to read my mind," Nicholas notes with confusion.

The first answer to Nick's line of logic is Harper refilling his cup, almost to overflowing but just short. She laughs oh-so briefly then quells it. "I saw /something/ like that. But I see lots of things," she qualifies. She hears what people who don't exist say. "Read your mind? No. I don't have a microphone on your psyche. But sometimes ...." She tips one ear slightly toward her shoulder as she contemplates how to put it. " -- sometimes I /feel/ things that feel like they're from outside me. And, well, when you were dreaming and I was trying to talk you out of what sounded pretty awful, I focused on your breathing, and I -- I don't know -- kind of felt my way in. I was trying to tell you that we stay together. That when everything is wrong that means everything is right. And that nothing is ever right." If he can follow that line of Harper-speak, he's doing well. "I saw you in a courtyard type place and I tried to make it explode." She nibbles her lower lip, waiting to be laughed at. "I have to /try/ to do it and it doesn't always work. But usually it's more... feelings than images. It's not like a constant radio station." She looks down. She knows she's crazy. Doesn't dispute it. But abruptly she feels as though she's going to lose her connection with Nicholas because she is saying these things.

"Do you hear /my/ thoughts?" she abruptly asks, her warm brown gaze flickering back up to his blue eyes in serious query.

"I heard you," Nicholas admits, staring into the cup and thinking back quietly. "You saw it, then," comes a whisper, delving deeper in that thought-path as he muses the implications. "It's like you /saw/ it," with a strong emphasis on the word, as though that very concept is key to the whole puzzle. Wetting his lips before he raises the hot cocoa up, a gentle sip is taken as he contemplates that. Looking up, he meets her eyes and his narrow, "I think that if I could read your thoughts, Harper, I'd have done it immediately after the other day, in the truck? You weren't saying anything comprensible." He borders on the inevitable questions, her and her Crazy. They seem to be right there on the tip of his tongue.

"I don't know," Harper answers in a small voice. "Maybe my thoughts and um feelings are just too tangled up to catch. Or maybe they're not even /real/ thoughts and feelings." Come again? She's questioning the existence of her own mind? "I don't know what you'd do, Granholm. You never do what I expect. Have you ever /tried/?" She senses it, given her earlier switching on of the mental Glimmer. She senses his thoughts about her Crazy. And somehow, although she navigates the world impervious to the things said about her, the way people react, /sensing/ it from Nick's mind hurts just a little bit.

"No, Harper," Nicholas looks up, remembering the thought that hit him first and then faded, reignited by her words just now. "I /heard/ you. In the middle of all of that turmoil and chaos, I /heard/ YOU," he says firmly, staring at her eyes until she seems to see how important this is. "Do you understand what I'm telling you? 'You're safe', you said to me, /three nights ago/, Harper," not tonight. "'Everything is okay', you said," he continues, watching her eyes, "I heard that -in- the castle, not here tonight. I've dreamt it for two nights and a day, Harps. Are you /sure/ you weren't there with us? You said "There's no glass", and it made me laugh. Everyone thought I had lost it, and I think that I had!"

There is no way that Harper could explain how what she did in the dream transfered back to his memory of the event. She realizes what he's saying now, abruptly and the smile sparkles in her brown eyes, triumphant or delighted or hopeful. Without that dimming, she shakes her head, "I wasn't there. I said those things -- at least in my head -- tonight." Caveat major! "If I'd been there with you, it wouldn't have taken me two days to figure out how hurt you were and nothing on earth or the sideways pieces of it would have kept me from coming to ... bring you hot chocolate sooner." Her smile lifts those pretty red lips and she delights in him understanding even ten percent of the significance of glass. Whether or not he wants to try to hear her tipsy thoughts right now doesn't matter. "We all lose it. All the time," she offers up and turns to hop back on the swing beside Nicholas. It hardly bounces. Light as a feather indeed.

"Where were you?" he asks, curious, not angry, "during the play event? Home? Working? Out with your second stand-by boytoy?" Ignoring the near-spill of the chocolate from her petite leap for a moment, he tilts his head, "How is this possible? We haven't talked about what you can do before... have we?" Now he's questioning a tessaract possibility of realities and his eyes unfocus, "That's how we could both see the flames in the pizzeria, Harper. Maybe?"

Harper widens her eyes and tries to remember exactly when the event happened in town. "I was doing inventory. A new shipment of books arrived." He mentions her having boy-toys and she punches him in the shoulder harder than she might normally. "Sherlock Holmes was not in town that night," she answers primly, then adds a hint of faux maudlin to the end of it. "He's always so busy." She is drawn back on track by his line of query. "I can't really do anything much, Nicholas. Just a couple ... I mean, you saw all of it, too." What's how they could both ...? "Because there's some kind of cosmic golden thread between us? Or do you think I'm the one that made us see ... and feel all that? I hurt you?" Oh gods have mercy. Harper is going to think she's responsible for more than the people she loves dying. Now she's causing these Events? "I'm sorry," she whispers.

Half-turning on the swing, he clasps her hands with his, "Harper, stop. Think about this. We were together at the Pizzeria, right? We both saw the fire, we were trying to get those people out of there. I fucking threw a /chair/ through the front windows!" A sardonic laugh, squeezing her hands with his own, "I don't know how or why, but we saw the same thing and no one else did... or... could." Something about that point tickles at his brain, but it's a brain that still throbs from being stabbe at the base of the skull with a bolt from a crossbow. Looking at her, he closes his eyes, focusing, "Tell me what you see."

Harper's hands and the thermos are all caught up in Nick's much larger hands. You know what they say about EMT's hands. They get you there. She listens, nods. Right. "But ... Anastasia. I thought she saw it." She purses her lips and remembers that afterward Stacy just made sure he took care of the window. Hmmm. "But that was -- what do you think it means?" Then he closes his eyes and centers himself and she draws a slow, deep breath. Exhales. Just like at the beach with their feet in the surf. Again. Again. Her eyes drift closed. "I see ... me." What an odd sensation from the third person. "Leaning over to put the bread box and your book on your stoop. Then I fall back on my bum and look way up and point and say something..."

"Now me. Will you try?" Harper asks.

A slow smile, mischevious, blooms on his lips. He is just looking at her and nodding when she opens her eyes again, a sincerely look of "See? I told you so," in his expression. A beat, then he whispers, "There's no way that you'd know what I was thinking, no way. But you can see it, can't you. When you concentrate, just like that." Sitting back into the swing seat, he lifts the cup to his lips finally, draining it all in a few gulps before he sits it on the floor of the porch. Turning, he looks at her.

Harper once again closes her eyes after she stuffs the thermos between her knees and grabs both of Nick's hands, to be on the safe side. Repeated slow breaths.

For a moment, Nicholas just watches her face melt from confusion and concern into the peaceful expression of meditation. How does she do that so easily, he wonders to himself with a bit of self-consciousness. A moment later, he is following suit, closing his eyes, feeling those soft hands under his. "Buttons, gold on white, a shirt. A nameplate... is that...?" he murmurs aloud, his eyes opening and fixing on her, "Is that the picture of my assignment post to the EMT s? Me in the paper?" In uniform.

While he speaks, Harper keeps her eyes closed, dark lashes in relief against her pale skin. She's broadcasting an imagge she's looked at multiple times while being mightily concerned that she's the cause of all the pain and injuries. But she's focused. He finishes speaking with a query and she opens up her eyes, her lips curving to that familiar, warm smile. "I might have cut it out and paper-clipped it to the banana bread recipe." Is that all? Crazy Harper is Crazy Harper. But that smile, it's beatific. She's not alone. She's not -- in this instant -- crazy, or at least not crazy all alone. "You felt it?" The little thrum of happiness that accompanied the image. The feel of memories of laughter and teasing. Tipsy Harper can't hold in her triumphant feelings and spontaneously stretches up to brush a kiss to first Nick's left cheek, then his right, her smile still on her lips as she sinks back down that handful of extra inches.

Nicholas sits back like she slapped him, though her hands never left atop his, or at least he doesn't believe she did. It is a long moment as he stares at Tipsy Harper, his heart rate of panic calming as he sees just how much the hot toddy drink has had an effect on her thought processes. A small smile touches his lips for just a moment, before the wall of water roars back up and reminds him of who he is. "Thank you," Nick says in a faraway voice, just not sure how to process the chaste twin cheek-kisses. "I felt it," a moment later.

Harper's head tips, her starry-tipsy eyes wide as Nicholas reacts oddly to her delighted, platonic show of affection and mutual triumph. "Did you not like it?" she asks solemnly. The image, silly. Not the Hollywood mwah-mwah kisses.

"What?" he stares at her, eyes getting wider at her flat-lined tone, shaken out of his reverie with the disappointment in it, "No!" Isn't it fun to translate a negative answer to a negatively-phrased question? Nicholas shakes his head to both answer Harper and clear his thinking, the Etch-a-Sketch thought process fix. "Why did you pick that image, though? Because it was me?" he asks.

Harper scoots a little away from Nicholas, given his body language, but still on the swing that her legs don't reach down enough to push. "It was just the first thing that came into my mind," she answers airily.

Harper drags her knees up and to the armrest side on the swing, maintaining her modesty in her librarian dress and cardigan. She sets the thermos on the armrest itself. It's nearly empty anyway. Her gaze is on the front door and screen, thoughtful.

When she pulls away from him, Nicholas once again realizes that he lacks the skills of understanding what runs through a girl's mind, sometimes. Confused, he lets her tuck herself into the end-arm of the swing and he folds his hands atop his leg. "Okay," is the best way to let her off the hook for thinking that anything was wrong with her choice, at least. But, the moment has turned cold and awkward again, like the clouds have covered the sun on a fall day.

Harper lifts a hand to press two fingertips to her lips while lost in thought. She slants a sideglance to Nicholas. Not looking slapped anymore. Not shaking like an Etch-a-sketch. She murmurs against her fingertips as if jailing her lips, "What do you think we should do?" The tipsy is turning her languid, thoughtful, dragging her gaze faraway. But does she realize -- not one to imbibe in alcohol m uch -- that with the drinking the voices have all but stopped? Not right now she doesn't. Brown eyes tentatvely seek out blue ones.

Nicholas is watching for her eyes, for he is gauging her, seeing where Harper is at, right now. Just how much Crazy Harper is he seeing currently? "Stick together," the very words that she used in the fire, delivered right back to her on a silver platter when he has her full attention.