sicparvasmagna | June 20

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June 20 - Open

It's not like he hasn't thought about him. Nate's pretty sure that he'll think of Sam in one way or another every day for the rest of his life, but the pain is something that's more or less distant now, something he learned how to handle. He doesn't know when it happened but somewhere along the way the ache in his chest dulled and he learned how to think about Sam without wanting to die with him. A lot of that is because of Sully, and Nate doesn't want to think about where he would have ended up if it wasn't for his friend.

That job had gone so impossibly wrong, worse than anything Nate has ever pulled, but it was more than ten years ago and he's moved on. Or he thought he had.

Nate's been researching almost nonstop since he turned up in this city, and he feels like today he's on his way to a breakthrough. If he was back home he'd be back halfway across that desert by now, certain that he was starting to work out exactly where to find the location of the city. He doesn't know what's persuaded him to keep looking even while he's stuck here, but he's been hunting that treasure for twenty years and it's not an easy thing to just let go of.

He's been locked away in a back room of the library surrounded by old books all day and he's parched. He could probably make it home, he thinks, but there's a vending machine on his way and it's all too easy to just stop and get a bottle of water. He's finished half of it in a couple of swallows when suddenly he pauses, the bottle to his lips.

There's no way.

Nate hasn't seen his brother in ten years but there's no mistaking him. There's no way he could possibly be in this city, but Nate is running after him before he even really registers it, the bottle slipping from his fingers to splash across the sidewalk.

"Sam!" he yells, but Sam doesn't stop, breaking into a run himself. Nate follows, racing him around a corner, before he comes skidding to a halt. A little way down the street he can see him, his brother backed up against a wall, but three guards are closing in. Nate blinks, and he recognises the faces, the uniforms, even years later. The scene in front of him is different to the way he remembers it, but he knows how it will end anyway. One of the guards shouts something in Spanish and Nate flinches as Sam puts his hands up behind his head.

"Sam!" he calls again, and this time his brother turns to look at him. Nate meets his eyes for a second and then the shot rings out, and suddenly Nate is in his twenties again, watching his brother die. Sam coughs up blood and staggers once, twice, and Nate lunges forward. The guards have vanished again and that doesn't make any sense but he doesn't care, running forward and skidding painfully to his knees on the pavement.

"Nathan," Sam says, and this time there's no rooftop, no fall. Last time he'd run because his brother was dead and Rafe convinced Nate not to die with him, but this time there's no one to drag him back, no way to turn away from his brother bleeding out on the ground in front of him.

"Shit, Sam, don't." His hands are moving, trying to staunch the blood, but he already knows there's no point. He doesn't know how it's possible but somehow his brother has turned up in this goddamn city only to die on him all over again.

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Things have been very strange lately. Beth has tried everything she can to deal with the influx of memories she'd received not all that long ago and she's moving through her life, doing her daily activities, living much in the same way she was before, but her heart isn't in it. Too often she recalls the sound of the shot ringing out. Too often she sees Dawn's face, feels the pain of the bullet. Too often she thinks of Gorman and can't think of anything else except what he would have done to her if she hadn't fought back.

She feels like she's a ghost, which is fitting, given everything she's remembered.

But when she sees Nate, when she hears him, it isn't as hard as she would have expected to push all that aside and go running to him. He had been there for her, after all, in the worst moments of her life, and she would do anything for him in return.

"Nate," she says when she's near enough, watching him with concern. She drops to her knees as well, reaching out to touch his arm gently. "What's wrong? What's goin' on?"

Sam's fingers are clutched in his shirt, smeared with blood, and Nate knows that's an image that's going to stick around far longer than he wants it to. He hadn't thought there was anything worse than watching Sam fall from that roof, but this is worse, this is infinitely worse.

"Stay with me," he begs, feeling like he's thirteen again and begging Sam to stay at the orphanage. He used to hate it when he left after a visit, used to try anything to make him stay.

Dimly he registers that someone else has arrived and is kneeling next to him, and he casts a cursory glance to the side to see that it's Beth. She asks what's going on and Nate almost laughs hysterically, but he holds it in check. What's wrong is his brother is dying in his arms all over again. What's wrong is that he can't save him. Again.

"It's my brother," Nate tells her, pressing his hand more firmly on the wound and shouting at Sam to keep his eyes open. "Call an ambulance!"

He says it's his brother, to call an ambulance, and the way he's moving is so strange, like there really is someone else there with him, but there's not. There's no one but the two of them and Beth frowns down at the ground, looking at where Nate's hands are pressing and she shakes her head, reaching to lay her hands over his.

There isn't any blood and he doesn't look like he's hurt, so she doesn't heed his instructions to call an ambulance, not right away. Instead she holds her hands over his, feels how hard he's pressing down against the ground, and looks up at his scared expression.

"Nate," she says gently. "Hey, there's no one else here. It's just you and me."

If he had any presence of mind he might warn her about all of the blood, to keep her hands away, but that doesn't seem important right now. It's so far from the realm of importance it's almost funny that he even thinks it. Her hands touch his and for a moment he thinks she's trying to help him stem the wound but then he looks at her and sees her expression.

People have looked at Nate likes he's crazy before, but never like this.

He's been told he's insane when he's agreed to do some job, been told he's crazy for getting himself into the things he does. Elena is in a permanent state of shaking her head and telling him he's an idiot, Sully always gets this look like he should know better than to let Nate go but he does it anyway. Chloe used to laugh in his face, but no one has ever looked at him like this, like they're genuinely scared he's losing his damn mind.

"He's dying, Beth," he says anyway, pleading. He needs her to get help, even if he can't grasp why she doesn't seem to feel any urgency about it. "He's died on me before I can't have it happen again."

That in and of itself is probably an odd enough trigger - people don't die twice, not in Nate's experience, but this city has a way of fucking with things. Beth had died back home, apparently, but she's alive here, and maybe Sam's been transported before his death, too. It seems cruelly unfair to bring him here just to let him die again. "Please. Help me."

She's growing afraid now, not for the brother Nate thinks is here, but for Nate himself. All these things he's saying, he really believes them, he really believes his brother is here, bleeding on the ground of the alley, and she wonders for a second if she should call an ambulance for Nate. It's a thought she discards almost as soon as she has it, because she doesn't think Nate will forgive her for having him committed, even if he is in a state that worries her deeply.

They have to figure it out. They can't involve anyone else.

"Nate," she says again, then lifts her hand, cupping either side of his face. "Look at me. Just look at me for a second, let me see your eyes." He's seeing things that aren't there and she doesn't know if he's been drugged or someone has done something to him or maybe it's just magic, but she's scared for him and she want to be able to help, but she doesn't know how. This is so far out of her area of expertise.

She doesn't believe him, that much is clear, but the quicker Nate convinces her he isn't crazy, the quicker they can get Sam to a hospital. A small part of him wonders if maybe he is losing it, and that's what makes the decision for him. He turns his head, meets hers with pupils blown wide, trying to concentrate on the steadying feeling on her hands on his face.

"What's wrong?" he asks, and this time he means with him.

He hesitates, swallows hard. "You can't see him," he says slowly, turning the idea over in his brain, "can you?" He doesn't want to believe it, doesn't want to hear her say he's finally cracked, but he can feel it coming.

"Jeez, Nate," she breathes softly, looking at him steadily, seeing just how big his pupils have gotten. It could be due to fear, she knows how to body reacts when someone is scared, but it looks an awful lot like he's been drugged. And he's seeing things that aren't there, seeing someone bleeding on the ground, and she has to think there's a cause behind it.

Nate's never struck her as the sort of person to just break one day. Not like this. He's been through a lot, she can just tell and she doesn't think he would just crack.

"I can't see him, but it looks like you've been drugged," she says, turning his face carefully and gently from side to side, trying to get a better look at his eyes. "Your pupils are huge. D'you remember anyone givin' you somethin'? A drink, a snack? Anything?"

Nate casts a cautious glance at Sam, feeling the way his heartbeat is growing softer underneath Nate's fingertips, the way the blood seeping from him has started to slow. He's almost dead and Nate is still just sitting here, not doing a damn thing about it.

But Beth is still talking to him, telling him he's been drugged, asking what he's eaten, what he's drank. There's a haze settling over Nate's brain and he fights through it. For a split second, when he blinks his eyes, Sam is gone. There's no blood on the pavement and it's like he was never there, but then Nate blinks again and he's back, his pulse fading.

"What..." he struggles to get out, trying to shake the fog. If he's been drugged it would maybe explain this, make it easier to deal with. But if she's wrong and he lets Sam die...

"I had a bottle of water," he remembers. He remembers it splashing to the ground as he ran. "Then I saw him running, before." Before this, before he got shot and died all over again. But the water had come from a vending machine and it had been sealed. There's no way someone could have snuck something into it when he wasn't looking.

A bottle of water doesn't seem like the type of thing someone would be able to drug and she doesn't know why anyone would want to drug Nate anyway, not here in Darrow. But his pupils are just so big and he's seeing things that aren't really here and Beth realizes with a start that she's frightened. Really frightened. This isn't the kind of fear that comes with walkers, the cold sort of calming fear that had come over her when she had been trying to get out of Grady. This is something else entirely, something bigger than that.

She's afraid for Nate. Afraid what might have been done to him, afraid of what he's seeing. Mostly afraid she won't know what to do in order to stop it.

"Should I call an ambulance for you?" she asks. "If I call one, they're... they're not gonna see your brother either. They're gonna want to take you." She doesn't ask if he's okay with that, she knows he won't be, but she doesn't know what else to do. Feeling helpless isn't something Beth is used to and she doesn't like it. She likes knowing how to help, how to take control, and right now she's lost.

Nate shakes his head firmly when she mentions the ambulance. He doesn't care if he's actually losing his mind in an alley, he's not going in an ambulance. He doesn't need a hospital and he doesn't need people fussing over him. Even if this Sam isn't real, Nate doesn't want to leave him. Not yet.

"Don't," he says, and he doesn't beg her but he doesn't think she'll argue with him. She looks scared and he's sorry for that, sorry that he's causing her this kind of worry after what she's just been through, so he forces himself to breathe.

Slowly, he pushes air in and out of his lungs and when he glances down Sam is gone again. Slowly, whatever had a grip on his mind is loosening, and Nate thinks maybe he can start to breathe again. Sam isn't here. Whatever is happening right now, he knows she's right. It's not real. Sam died ten years ago. He's gone.

"This goddamn city," he says, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, just in case. Something is setting off alarms in his brain, something is telling him he knows this, he knows the cause, but it's just out of reach. Nate opens his eyes, steadily ignores Sam blinking back into view and meets Beth's eyes. "I think it's magic," he says, and maybe once he would have thought he sounded like an idiot, but not anymore.

No ambulance. No hospital. That makes her nervous, too, but she'll listen to what he wants. Nate isn't stupid and he isn't going to do something that will put other people at risk right here in Darrow, she's sure of that, but she doesn't really know what's happening either. It frightens her to think something might be happening to him that she can't help, something she can't change.

Especially something like this. Watching someone he loves die. Watching someone he would do anything for just disappearing right in front of his eyes. It isn't exactly what happened to her in the park, but it isn't entirely different either. He's seeing something that isn't really there and even if it's real, even if it's something that's happened in the past, it isn't happening now. That doesn't change it, it doesn't make it any less scary, and Beth tries to remember how Nate helped her that day in the park.

He'd let her go somewhere she felt safe. Somewhere they could just be.

"It might be," she agrees, taking Nate's hand gently. "Do you still see him?"

Nate squeezes her hand, glad for the tie to the physical, to something real. If he's losing his mind he's gonna be fucking pissed about it, but he's not convinced that's what's happening. Weird enough shit has happened in this city. Just last week Beth thought she'd been shot in the head. Nate breathes steadily, forces himself to concentrate. The more he focuses on Beth's hand in his, the quicker Sam blinks out of view.

"He comes and goes," Nate tells her honestly. He doesn't want to leave Sam like this but he's almost positive now that it's not Sam, not for real, anyway. This city is full of cruel tricks and Nate will resent the hell out of it later, but for now he just wants control of his own head again.

"He died ten years ago," he tells her. Sam died a long time before Nate showed up in this city and maybe that doesn't mean anything, dead people turn up here all the time, but he's pretty sure Sam isn't supposed to be here. "He's already dead, this isn't real."

If he comes and goes, he can't really be here, that's what Beth decides, but that doesn't make it any less scary or any less real to Nate. She lets him squeeze her hand and then squeezes back, assuring him she's here, she's real. And whether or not his brother is really here doesn't matter, not at the end of it. What matters is what Nate has seen. And not for the first time from the sounds of what he's telling her.

Beth knows what that pain is like. She hadn't seen Shawn die, not the first time, but she had seen her mother, and she'd watched both of them gunned down the second time when they had come out of that barn. She'd watched her father die, too, every last terrible moment of it, right down to that peaceful smile he had given her and Maggie. What Nate is seeing, what he's seen, she knows just how awful it is.

"The pain is real, though," she says. "That's real." And there's no end to it, she's learning that. Things can be good for awhile, for a long time, but there's still pain. "I'm so sorry about your brother, Nate. That's awful, it's an awful thing to have to go through and it's an awful thing to have to see."

Lila hears someone yell twice for a person named Sam. Their voice is familiar and distraught, so Lila unsheathes a knife and runs toward it. Someone is in danger, and it isn't heroism that motivates her to help, but the possibility of a fight. When she rounds a corner she finds Nate kneeling alone on the ground. She looks around for an assailant, for injury, but sees neither.

"What's going on? Were you attacked?" she asks, body still poised for a fight.

Nate turns at the sound of Lila, seeing her standing behind him with a knife out, like she's ready to fight something. The guards have already gone and Nate wouldn't have wanted her to hurt them anyway. All that's left is Sam, bleeding out in Nate's lap, his eyes rolling back.

"My brother," he says, nodding at the body in front of him. "He got shot."

He's seen this all before but it's a thousand times worse now, and he doesn't know how to explain that to Lila. He doesn't think a teenage girl should be seeing this anyway but he gets the idea she might have seen worse.

"Your brother's here?" Lila blurts out, and realizes she probably didn't know because maybe he only recently arrived. Nate is being weird, crouched on the ground in the middle of nowhere. She looks around again, but still she sees nothing, which means his brother must be somewhere else in the city.

"Is...he in the hospital?"

Nate looks at her like she's the crazy one for a moment, frowning. "He's right here," he says, pointing a bloodied hand at the body in his lap. Lila doesn't strike him as crazy though, and Nate takes a moment to consider the fact that she apparently can't see Sam. That's impossible, because he's right here, but he doesn't think she's cruel enough to play that kind of trick.

"You don't see him," he says, and when he says the words it's like something switches, and suddenly Sam is gone. A moment later Nate blinks and he's back again, his breath coming in rattling gasps.

"I think I'm losing it," he says, blinking once, twice. If he is going crazy this is probably the worst way it could happen, he thinks, but he's also not all that surprised. It stands to reason that he'd crack eventually. He'd thought it had happened in the desert, but then he'd ended up here. Maybe home has finally caught up to him.

Nate says his brother is here and indicates his lap, and for a moment Lila thinks he's making some kind of dick joke, except that he doesn't seem the type. At least not to make one to her.

You don't see him.

She doesn't. She only sees Nate, hunched on the ground, his shoulders sloped in defeat, talking about an invisible brother. There was a man who frequented a pub Lila used to go to on occasion back in her London. The others had called him Mad Martin because he used to talk to himself, or talk to you like you were someone else entirely. They hadn't been wrong, calling him mad, but he'd been nothing like Nate. She can't imagine this man turning into anything like old Martin.

"Maybe you just need some sleep," Lila says, an unusual gentleness in her voice. "Or you've had a few too many beers?"

Nate can't remember the last beer he had, but suddenly he thinks that's exactly what he needs. If he's going crazy he might as well get blackout drunk.

"I haven't been drinking," he tells her, shaking his head. He focuses his gaze on Lila, and the more he concentrates on anything else, the more Sam starts to fade again. He's not here, that much is clear. Whatever Nate is seeing, Sam was never really here. He died on a job ten years ago, Nate knows that, saw it. He hates this fucking city.

"This city is driving me off the deep end," he tells her, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Then maybe you haven't been drinking enough," Lila says dryly, and holds out a hand. "Come on, up with you. If you're having some kind of breakdown we can at least find a better place to have it." This alley, much like many of the ones from her own London, is dirty and has a foul, moist smell to it. She should probably get him back to his apartment so he has a little privacy, too.

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June 20 - Open

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