True Believers: Part Fourteen
"A history lesson," Domino said quietly. She could still remember every detail of that night at Camp Verde, when he'd finally told her about Aliya and Tyler. Oh, she'd known already, from Kane. But hearing it from Nathan himself, half-drunk though he'd been at the time--he hadn't taken the revelation of his true identity or Stryfe's time in control of his body as coolly as everyone seemed to think he had--had been entirely different. It had been a turning point for them, in many ways: confirmation of what she'd always suspected, that the coldness he projected wasn't really him, but his way of protecting himself. A mask. And I know all about masks, that's for sure--
Nathan's grip on her hands tightened for a moment. Then, he let go and leaned back in his chair, regarding her with a strange, feverish intensity that she didn't like at all.
"I went a little mad at that point, I think," he said in a flat, emotionless voice. "The war was all that mattered to me. I threw myself into preparations, hardly ate, hardly slept--Tetherblood was sure I was trying to kill myself."
"Were you?" she asked quietly, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
"No, that came later," he said with a harsh bark of laughter. "In the end, we got intelligence warning us that the Canaanites were going to land huge numbers of ground troops at--Thessalonica, you'd call it, and blockade the Protectorate." His expression was stony. "Stryfe's idea, we learned. He was planning to cut off our supply lines, starve us out. All in all, a rather more patient strategy than I was used to seeing from him. So I, genius that I am, decided that I was going to be the unpredictable one."
He fell silent for a long moment. Domino focused on the link, and got the distinct impression that he was afraid to go on. "And?" she pressed.
"We had some time to plan." The mask was showing some cracks, now. There was a growing unsteadiness in his voice, and he wouldn't meet her eyes. "I sent a message to the Pan-Africans. We were going to march down to meet the Canaanites, put on a deliberate show of force--something we'd never done before--in order to lure them north. Stryfe never could resist the chance for a pitched battle. While they were occupied with us, Huson's people were going to come up on their rear and take out their airships. Then they would have been trapped on the ground, caught between our two forces. And that would have been to our advantage. We still would have been outnumberd, but we were better when it came to close combat--" He rubbed his temples for a moment. "It should have worked," he said hoarsely. "The plan had its risks, but it should have worked--"
"But?" she asked, and almost shrank back into her chair at the stab of pure, white-hot rage that came down their link.
"The Pan-Africans," Nathan said emotionlessly, "didn't come."
***
"There you are, 'Ro," Rogue said genially, spotting Storm just outside the War Room. Ororo gave what looked an awful lot like a guilty twitch, and came forward to meet her. "Where've you been?"
"I have been--occupied," Ororo said, sounding stiff and uncomfortable. Rogue gave her a penetrating look.
God almighty--is she blushing? "Young Nate decided to rejoin the land of the livin'," she said thoughtfully, letting the subject go--for now. "Cecilia convinced him to let her give him a physical--the kid seems pretty taken with her, actually--but ah told him ah'd hunt up Cable for him. Apparently he wants to talk, don't ask me why." Rogue gestured at the War Room. "Cable in there?"
"Yes," Ororo said, too quickly. "He is--talking to Domino. Perhaps it would be best if you waited--"
"Talkin' to Domino, huh?" Rogue asked, folding her arms across her chest. She'd been afraid of this, seeing Ororo's furtive demeanor. "Alright, sugar, spill it. What precisely are you doin' hanging around here, then? You're not eavesdropping, are you?"
Ororo stiffened. "The War Room is soundproof, and I am no telepath," she said with a good attempt at hauteur. "I could hardly be eavesdropping, Rogue--"
"But you shouldn't be here, 'Ro," Rogue said, not mincing words. Ororo flinched, but Rogue didn't give her a chance to protest. "You don't have the excuse of bein' driven by someone else's memories anymore." This was more than a little ironic, Rogue thought, somewhat amused. Her, lecturing someone else on this particular subject?
"Excuse?" Ororo snapped, flushing angrily. "I never once--"
"Poor choice o'words, maybe," Rogue admitted, raising a defensive hand. "Ah know it wasn't your fault, that you didn't know what was goin' on. But now you do, and the last thing ah'd think you'd want would be to get between those two."
Her calm tone and rational arguments had the desired affect. Ororo's shoulders slumped. "I know, Rogue," she said softly. "I do realize that. But the memories are still there. And they are so very clear, now that Jean has--disentangled them from my own. The urge to--comfort him is very strong, even though I know it is not my place." She sighed, covering her face with her hands for a moment. "Perhaps I should ask Jean for help. She must have some advice to give, after carrying both Madelyne's and the Dark Phoenix's memories."
"Not a bad idea," Rogue said sympathetically. This had all been an accident, no one's fault, but it was such a mess--"You and Jean ARE gonna tell him eventually, right?"
"That I still carry his wife's memories?" Ororo said with a humorless smile. "Eventually."
Rogue nodded, relieved. While Jean had been able to separate the foreign memory engrams from Storm's mind, so that they would no longer influence her, she hadn't been able to remove them entirely. She'd had to settle for isolating them from Ororo's own memories until she could think of a more permanent solution. Oddly enough, it had been Domino who'd suggested keeping that from Cable.
He's going to be kicking himself in the ass as it is, she'd said. And the fact that he seems bound and determined to push himself into a relapse is more important, don't you think? As long as the immediate problem's looked after, Jean, I don't think Nathan absolutely has to know that Storm still has a few stray pieces of Jenskot rattling around in her head. For now, at least.
"What was she like?" Rogue asked, curious despite herself. "Jenskot, I mean." She shrugged, a little embarassed of her question as Ororo's expression grew faintly amused. "Ah know ah'm being a gossip, 'Ro, but ah can't help wonderin' what kind of woman someone like Cable'd fall in love with."
Ororo gave her a faint smile. "It is difficult to tell, with how fragmentary the memories are, but I believe she would have been an--interesting person to know. Very intelligent. Proud, courageous--also strong-willed and extremely hot-tempered. The smile turned faintly embarassed. "One would think you would have guessed that last quality simply be observing my behaviour of late."
"Well," Rogue said gravely, "ah did think it was a bit out of character for you t'be gettin' into a catfight with Domino." Ororo flushed, and Rogue laughed, shaking her head. "Just kidding, 'Ro--mostly. C'mon, let's go. No need for either of us t'be hangin' around here."
Ororo looked back over her shoulder at the door of the War Room, and then, resolutely, turned away. "That sounds like a very good idea, Rogue," she said softly.
***
"WHAT?" Domino exclaimed. Nathan winced, as if her outburst had hurt his ears, and she modulated her voice instantly. "The Pan-Africans didn't come?" she said, and the outrage she felt was all hers. "You helped them chase out the Canaanites and they left your Clan to die?" He flinched, going ashen at her words, and she cursed herself. "Oh, damn, Nate--I'm sorry--"
"Why?" he asked, his voice shaking. That rage she'd sensed was gone. "That was blunt, but accurate."
"I don't--I don't understand," she said helplessly. "Why didn't they come? What happened?"
"I have no idea," he said, shifting in his chair. She stared at him, aghast, expecting anger, expecting something--"After--everything was over, they never tried to contact us. I was just as happy to pretend they didn't exist. If I'd gone back and found out that there hadn't been a very good reason, I don't know what I would have done." His grip on the arms of his chair tightened, and his voice went rough with pain. "Huson--we were friends, Dom. Or at least I thought we were. I stood beside him at the naming ceremony for his son, fought beside him in battle during the time we were in the Confederacy--we saved each other's life, more than once. I--"
"Trusted him," she said softly. Nathan nodded mutely. Was this what had made him so leery of trusting anyone or anything? It didn't take much to cripple a person's capacity for trust; Domino knew that, intimately. "They weren't attacked themselves?"
"I doubt it," he said bitterly. "Considering what happened to us, I doubt the Canaanites had enough troops left to send in their direction."
"Go on," she whispered, not sure she wanted him to.
"All right," he said dully. He closed his eyes, his whole body going rigid. "We'd just completed our march. The Canaanites were landing, we were in place. Then the scouts brought in the courier I'd sent to the Confederacy. We'd given her a stolen patrol craft for the trip, and she'd crash-landed it not far from our lines. She was wounded, dying actually, but she held on for long enough to tell us what was going on. Not only were the Pan-Africans not coming, but a second Canaanite attack force, larger than the first, was. Our intelligence hadn't included that little--tidbit."
Oh, God, Domino thought, her mind flooding with images again. She could see it. The city by the sea, so alien-looking and yet so beautiful, even with the ugly hulks of Canaanite airships hovering above it. The airships came in one by one, disgorging thousands of soldiers, like green-armored swarms of ants.
"Retreat was an option, I suppose," Nathan said, opening his eyes and looking at her. His voice was suddenly perfectly level. Too calm, as if he was reading from a prepared script. "That would have saved us, but it would have meant abandoning the people we were sworn to protect. None of us could do that. So I detached part of our forces, twenty battle-groups, and told them to evacuate as many as they could north into the neutral provinces. The transient population there was large enough that they could have blended in without much difficulty. But an evacuation needed time. So the rest of us stayed to hold that Canaanites there."
"'Into the valley of death, charged the six hundred'," Domino murmured, her heart aching as she realized how this story must have ended.
"I sent Genesis Group away deliberately," Nathan said, as if he hadn't heard her. "Tetherblood, Hope, Dawnsilk, Boak and the others--I wanted to make sure at least part of the core leadership survived, to carry on. Tetherblood didn't want to go. I had to threaten to shoot him." Nathan got that distant look again. "Silo--one of my lieutenants who stayed--figured we were outnumbered fifteen to one at least. It was only a matter of time." His grip on the arms of his chair tightened to the point where she expected to see them warp under the pressure. "We made a few sorties early on, captured some of their artillery. That helped. In the end, we held for three days before their reinforcements arrived and charged our lines." He was trembling slightly, his eyes fixed on a scene years in the past, a battle yet to be. Domino had never felt so helpless in her life. "Everything's still a blur, even now. There were too many of them. They just swarmed us. I kept fighting, but wherever I looked, I could see my Clansmen going down. My telepathy was so much weaker back then, but I could still feel them dying--I think I must have snapped when I saw Stryfe. I just focused in on that damned silver armor like there was nothing else in the world, and went after him. I didn't make it, and the next thing I remember was waking up in a cell."
Domino froze. Maybe she didn't know how this story was going to end after all. "Where?" she asked, her throat so dry she could barely form the word.
"Aboard one of the airships. They took me to the citadel at Palas--Athens. That was where Haight had decided to make his regional capital. The Hellocoi, our secret allies, reaped the 'benefits' of their neutrality, you might say." He seemed much calmer again. Alarmingly so. "They interrogated me for days. Then they tried to--convert me. Haight liked the idea of having a 'reformed' war criminal who could publicly recant his crimes against the great and benevolent Canaanite Order. Would have been a wonderful propaganda coup. Unfortunately, I proved to be something of a disappointment."
Domino had had her own experiences in enemy hands. Some of those experiences had been worse than others. Her time as Tyler's prisoner had been worst of all. But the images trickling down their link brought tears of rage to her eyes. Not just for what he'd suffered, but for the cool way he was dismissing it, as if it was trivial. No, not trivial, she thought, chilled by the realization. As if he deserved it.
"Then," he continued in that same emotionless voice, "Stryfe had a brilliant idea. I still spent the bulk of my days with Haight's questioners, but, a few mornings a week, he would have me dragged out of my cell, brought to his airship, and chained to his command chair, where I had a front-row seat while he 'purified' every city, town, village and farmstead in the Protectorate. Sometimes he had the airship land, and dragged me out so that the people could see me, in chains, before they died." He was staring right through her. "I can still hear them screaming at me to help them. But I couldn't. No matter how hard I fought. In the end, I could only watch."
Domino stared at him, aghast. "My God, Nathan," she finally whispered. "How many?"
He rose from his chair and returned to his place in front of the blank screen, keeping his back to her.
"Tetherblood got a lot of people out," he said almost desperately. "More than I thought he would, really, but there was so little time--"
Domino rose from her chair. "How many?" she persisted quietly, and saw his hands clench into fists at his side.
"Three million people," he said hoarsely. "Give or take a few thousand."
***
Jean kept her expression stony as the discussion continued, but it took a great deal of effort, and she wasn't sure how well she was masking her feelings. From the way Dana's looking at me, not particularly well.
The realization only made her angrier. What were Sam and Dana doing here, anyways? This wasn't any of their business. The same went for Kitty--and Wisdom, too, despite his obvious history with Nathan.
And that it should be Logan, arguing for Nathan's side--part of Jean wondered if she hadn't somehow crossed over into another timeline where the natural order of things had been reversed. As she listened to him, carefully and patiently laying out the reasons why it made more sense to support Nathan in this insanity, Jean was seething inwardly, her tenuous grip on her temper slipping yet again.
"Besides," Logan said dryly. "How much luck do you think you're going to have, Scott, trying to keep him someplace where he doesn't want to be? You push him too far, and he's liable to throw caution to the wind and bodyslide himself out of here, relapse or no relapse."
#So instead, we let him walk out of here and get himself killed?# Jean projected right at Logan, unable to keep silent any longer. #Great idea, Logan.#
Logan, for the first time since the beginning of the conversation, looked openly frustrated. "Red, what's with you? You keep saying that Nate isn't thinking straight, but the way you're acting, it's the pot calling the kettle black."
Oh, that's it. I've had enough of this! "You think I'm being irrational?" Jean snarled. "Damn it, Logan, you don't have any idea what you're talking about!" She cast a scathing look at the others in the room. "None of you do! You can't!"
"Jean--" Scott started.
"No! None of you understand what a shock this severe does to a psi's mind." She tried to think of some way to explain it to them, some metaphor that wouldn't sound ridiculous. But the image that kept coming back to her was a stained glass window that someone had thrown a rock through, and she could hardly use that--"If he goes through with this, he's risking the same sort of trauma again. And if it happens for a second time, his mind won't heal! He could be headblind for the rest of his life--or worse! Would you all please try to get that through your heads?"
Surprisingly, it was Sam who broke the awkward silence. "Ah'm sure everything you said was right, ma'am," he said quietly. "But you're missin' the point. If Cable's decided that this mission is worth the risk, that's his choice, and you don't have any right to take that choice away from him. We've all made sacrifices, following the Professor's dream, haven't we? Cable might be walkin' another path, but in a lotta ways, ah think he's even more committed to it than the X-Men are to ours."
"There is such a thing as an unacceptable risk, Sam," Scott grated. "And Nathan should know that."
"Maybe, sir," Sam continued, some of the courtesy leaving his voice. "But this isn't Sentinel-hunting we're talkin' about here. This is Apocalypse. You stop Cable from going, you're takin' away everything he is."
The beginnings of doubt that had nagged at Jean when Sam had first spoken grew at that single, penetrating insight. As much as she feared what could happen to Nathan if he went into psionic shock again, she also knew how important his mission was to him. Not this mission to London, specifically, but the greater one that had brought him back to this time in the first place. He might guard the details of it like a buried treasure in the deepest reaches of his mind--she'd only ever caught a few glimpses, and been unable to understand even half of what she saw--but she knew how much it meant to him, how hard he fought in its name. Could she take that away from him? Even to save his life?
Scott, looking frustrated, seemed about to say something when Hank suddenly emitted a bellow of joy. He and Kitty had kept working on the computer, even when the discussion had gotten heated.
"Eureka!" he shouted. "Kitty, my dear woman, you're a genius!"
Kitty smiled like a cat polishing off a dish of cream. "Thank you," she said. "You're not bad yourself, Dr. McCoy."
/Warning,/ the computer said sweetly. /Unidentified aircraft approaching./ One of the screens flickered to show an exterior view of the grounds. A large, obviously well-armed plane was coming in over the lake.
Pete cursed under his breath. "You got access to com yet?" he asked Hank, who nodded, made a few adjustments to the console, and then slid aside, gesturing Pete forward. Pete gave him a wary look, and then made a few further adjustments of his own. "That you, Gwen?" he finally asked.
There was a brief silence, and then a short burst of static from the small speaker. "No, it's the Tooth Fairy," a woman's voice said wryly. "No one taught you proper com procedure yet, Wisdom?"
"Sod off, Samuels," Pete said sourly. "Land that beast of yours on the lawn. We had a bit of an accident with the bloody hangar."
"Will do," the voice said cheerfully. "See you in a minute."
Pete turned away from the console, distributing an equal-opportunity glare around the room. "Are we through here?"
Jean reached out, laying a hand on Scott's arm before he could say anything. There was only one decision she could make, she supposed. That didn't make it any easier. For the first time, she realized that Scott wasn't the only person who'd never quite been able to adjust after they'd returned home from their 'honeymoon'. I never wanted to admit it to myself, but I didn't want to let go, either. She wasn't burdened with the kind of guilt Scott was carrying around, but still--
"We're through," she said softly. Pete looked suspicious, but then gave a brisk nod and headed out of the room. Kitty, looking very relieved, went after him.
Jean, what are you doing? Scott protested over their psi-link. She reached out to reassure him, abruptly realizing how much she'd been influencing him, without even meaning to.
#What we have to do, Scott,# she sent back. #The lesser of two evils--# She'd said that to Rogue, hadn't she? Why had it taken her so long to accept it?
She turned to Logan. "You still plan to go," she said. It wasn't quite a question. Logan nodded. #I'm trusting you, Logan, to--#
He smiled faintly. Message heard and received, Jeanie. I'll do my best, he sent back. "Well," he said aloud. "That wasn't too painful, was it?" Scott glowered at him, and Logan's smile grew into a grin.
Jean sighed. "Logan?
"Yeah, Red?"
"Don't push your luck."
***
Three million people? Domino's mind reeled at the sheer horror of it. She rose, starting towards him instinctively, but even as she took that first step, their link opened up wider than it ever had before, and she saw it. She saw it all, just as he'd seen it all those years ago, every scene of hideous brutality burned into his memory like a brand. Men, lined up in front of firing squads and shot. Women, raped and murdered. Children, used for target practice--the screaming, the piteous cries for help. And everything was burning, the sky was choked with smoke, the world was on fire--my fault, I failed them, please let me die--
Like an icy lance, the despairing cry pierced her to the core, and Domino felt something deep inside her snap. Forcing her body from its frozen state, she crossed the space between them, hauled him around to face her, and hit him. Not as hard as she had that morning in Alaska, but she didn't hold much back, either. Knocked off balance, he staggered backwards, a dazed, uncomprehending look in his eyes.
"You idiot!" she shrieked at him, tears pouring down her face. "You--" Words failed her, and she took another swing at him. He dodged it, but lost his balance entirely and went to his knees. "How could you think that? How could you want that? Damn you, Nathan!"
Using the edge of the console for support, he pulled himself to his feet and edged away, looking dazed. "What are you--it was my fault, Dom--"
"YOUR FAULT?" she snarled and shoved him into the wall, hard enough to make him grunt with surprise. "Your fault, you utter moron? Is it your fault that Pan-African warlord betrayed you? Is is your fault Stryfe was a sadistic, black-hearted psychopath? IS IT?"
He pushed her away with an angry growl. "Oh, I get it! Spare me, Dom! At least Logan had the decency not to try and pat me on the back and tell me I wasn't to blame!"
Her anger abruptly cooled, hardening into a cold, purposeful determination. She was about to do something very cruel, but there was no other way. If she didn't do it now, if she gave him the chance to recover, he'd lock it all away again. Like he'd said earlier, she knew him too well.
And she couldn't let him go on like this, half-dead inside. Those walls of his were coming down, and if she had to use a battering ram, so be it.
"'My fault, I failed them'," she repeated in a cold voice. "It's all about you, isn't it? I know how much you hate to lose, Nate. Is that why you're still obsessing about this, all these years after the fact?"
He went absolutely ashen, and she nearly wept at the hurt she saw in his eyes. Even if this worked, even if he forgave her, she was going to have a very hard time forgiving herself for doing this to him.
"Why are you doing this?" he rasped. Through the link, she could still feel him trying to control himself, to 'bury' the memories again. And that suicidal despair was still there, a darkness that threatened to grow and consume everything around it.
"Why?" She kept her voice icy by an act of sheer will. But she had to snap him out of this, somehow. "Because I say what's on my mind, Nate, I always have. Do you want to know what I'm thinking now?" Ignoring the sudden pain in her chest, she steeled herself, plunging on past the point of no return. "I think you're scared to death of screwing up again! That's why you let the damned Askani run your life for you! You SAY you want to be free, to make you own choices, but you don't! Deep down, you don't trust your own judgement! You're running away, and it's pitiful!"
He swayed on his feet for a moment, as if she'd hit him again. Then, without a word, he turned and started unsteadily for the door. Cursing, she went after him.
"Don't you dare walk away from me, you fucking coward!" she hissed, catching his arm.
He whirled and broke her grip easily, moving faster than she'd expected considering his exhausted state. She took a step back, falling into a defensive position.
"Stab your eyes," he almost hissed, and the furious anger streaming down their link nearly drove her to her knees. "I tell you everything, all the details I've kept secret for the last twenty years or more--"
"Exactly!" she snapped, cutting him off before he could say anything else. "That's the point, Nate! You've kept this secret, acting like you're the one who should be ashamed, as if you were the only who killed all those people! Doesn't that strike you as just a little perverse?"
"No, it doesn't!" Nathan shouted at her, his expression wild and pure rage scorching down the link. Well, Domino thought dimly, at least he's not trying to control himself anymore. "I swore an oath, Dom, I was the head of the Clan--it's my responsibility!"
"No, it's not!" She felt close to tears again as she realized that he honestly believed that, with every fiber in his being. "You did the best you could, damn it--"
"It wasn't good enough!" That single, tortured cry shattered the last of her resolve, and she looked up at him through a haze of tears. "Oath, Dom," he said feverishly, "do you know what I did, after Tetherblood and the others broke me out of Palas? We went to North America, and I tried to start up the rebellion again. All I ended up doing was getting more people killed, people whose only crime was to dream of a better life--but no, I wasn't satisfied with that! When that failed, we went back to Eurasia and joined up with the Mao-Sino Pact. The Canaanites ended up crushing them, too, and I--I didn't even have the courage to stay there and die with them! I let Blaquesmith take me off that battlefield and send me here. I didn't know if Tetherblood or the others would survive--I abandoned them, because Blaquesmith convinced me that the only way to save my world was to change this one!" He seemed to realize he was shouting at her, and paused, taking a deep, ragged breath. His expression was haunted, tormented, so totally vulnerable that it almost killed her to meet his eyes.
"Nathan," she whispered, fighting back a sob. "Nathan, you can't--"
"The things I've done in this era, Dom," he continued in a quieter but no less anguished voice, "the things I've done--what I did to Hammer and Kane was nothing. I've lied, cheated, betrayed, murdered in cold blood--I'm as much of a monster as Stryfe was!"
Brushing away her tears, she swore and reached up, taking his face between her hands and forcing him to look at her. "That is not true," she said almost savagely, blinking back more tears. "You're nothing like Stryfe, Nathan!"
"I am--I--" He was crying, too. "You don't understand, Dom," he said in a choked voice. "You don't--it's all been for nothing, everything I've tried to do. Even if I complete my mission, all I can do is create a new timeline. They'll still have died--"
"Listen to me," she said roughly, not letting go of him. He tried to pull away, but she didn't let him. "Listen!" She reinforced it along their psi-link. "If that's true, why are you here?" she asked, as calmly as she could. "Why haven't you given up?" He stared down at her mutely, and she managed an unsteady smile. "Want to know what I think?"
Something very close to a sob shook his broad shoulders, but he met her eyes without looking away. *No,* his voice said in her mind, sounding terribly exhausted. *But you're going to tell me anyways, aren't you?*
"You're here," she said quietly, "because you don't give up. Because you believe you can make a difference, that you can create that other timeline where all those ghosts haunting you will be happy and alive. But Nate, you can't do it like this! You can't go on tearing yourself apart inside over something that wasn't your fault. It hurts everyone who might benefit from what you were sent here to do. And it's killing you, whether you want to admit it or not." She laid a hand flat against his chest, feeling his heart racing. "Nate, you can't bury something like this. I've tried it myself. It doesn't work. It may seem to, but whenever you're tired, or upset--or half-dead on your feet, in your case--it comes back out again. The only way to beat it is to face it head-on. Just like you do with everything else, you lout."
He tried to say something, but nothing came out. Domino bit her lip, frustrated when she couldn't think of anything else to say. So she did the next best thing. And kissed him.
It wasn't anything like the kiss they'd shared in the Negev, or the slightly more enthusiastic one to which they'd treated the patrons of the diner in Alaska. It was gentle, brief. A promise. And as she kissed him, she reached out to him across the link with every bit of compassion, trust, faith and love that existed in her soul.
And he pulled away, with a strangled mental cry that dizzied her. "No!" he snarled, brushing away tears almost impatiently. Their link was echoing with that awful depair again. "Don't you understand, Dom?" He sounded almost as if he was pleading with her, she thought dazedly. "You can't believe in me, I won't let you--"
"Nathan," she whispered, somehow sure that he didn't even realize he was speaking aloud. "Nathan, you don't have to be alone--"
He shook his head almost wildly. "I can't--I can't hurt you, Dom. I can't--" She reached out towards him, but he suddenly cursed and took a step backwards. "Don't touch me!" he snapped. That shuttered look was suddenly back, but she wasn't fooled, not this time. "I don't want you involved in this, Domino. You don't want to be involved in this."
Before she could say another word, he was past her and out the door. She stood, frozen, in the middle of the room for a long moment. Then, she shook her head.
"Not a chance, Nathan," she said calmly, and, turning, went after him.
to be continued...
[FOOTER]