If Nate found any sleep in the past two days, it was brief and uncomforting and in an empty bed. Since the "kid incident," everything was different. The moment Nate was done being a kid, Quin was done giving him a single second of her time. As much as it hurt, it was hard to blame her.

Everything was different because Quin met the one person Nate never wanted her to meet: Quin met Stephen Graves.

If there was one thing to take solace in, it was that Quin meant the young Stephen and not the conman he would become. The young boy still ended up being an agent of demise for Nate by revealing to Quin that the man she loved lied about his very name to her. She knew the truth, and she knew he betrayed her trust. What was worse: she did not even know how much he betrayed her trust.

Nate tried to call her three times in the two days following the event, but unsurprisingly, there was no response. Was she even still his girlfriend or should he just accept that there was an unspoken break-up the moment she found out?

Just tucking his tail between his legs and cutting his losses was not good enough for Nate. Even if things ended up being over, he still needed to talk to her. Nate had to hear the words "we're over" from Quin's mouth. This was the first girl in a decade to inspire love within him, and she was the first person to ever lead him back on the right path. Even if it ended with a red slapmark across his face, he needed to know he did all he could.

So this now led Nate to the door of Quin's apartment. He knocked on the door and prayed she would let him in.

Somehow when the knock came on the door, Quin knew that it was Nate…Stephen…whoever he was. That probably had something to do with the fact that she’d ignored his phone calls for the last two days, but what else had she been supposed to do?

Everything. everything was a lie. Right down to his name. It made Quin’s cheeks burn to even think about the last several months of her life. There were times when she’d practically been living with someone whose name she didn’t know.

Would he have ever told her? Quin didn’t think so. Still, he’d knocked, and in spite of everything, she couldn’t just leave him standing out there.

Up she got, ignoring the signs of trouble littered around the apartment. There were ice cream cartons, Kleenexes, and she was in sweat pants. The situation was dire indeed.

All joking aside, Quin made it to the door and looked out the peep hole. Yup. She’d been right. Reaching out, she opened the door and stood with arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

”Hi. Do I know you?” she asked, feigning surprise at the visitor.

If words could wound, Quin could take a sub-machine gun to his heart. As much as it hurt, it did not change anything; he knew what he was going to be expecting coming to her door, and he deserved whatever punishment she deemed appropriate. Still, ouch...

Nate did his best not to shrink down from the crossed arms and the glare. "I know, I know, you have every right..." For someone who spent most of his life in tight situations and formulating plans, Nate was surprised at how he had no idea what he might say. "I won't be surprised if you slam this door in my face, but this was something important to me, and I at least want to try explaining." If I even can. It was up to her; did they talk inside, would he explain himself in the doorway, or would the conversation meet a quick end?

Boy did Quin want to shut the door in Na- Stephen’s face. This had meant a lot to him? Somehow, that made her even more angry.

”If it meant so much to you, Stephen, you might have at least told me your name.” she hissed, leaning her shoulder against the door frame.

She couldn’t even look at him. Not in the face. Did he have any idea…

”Do you have any idea what it’s like to find something like this out? I don’t know anything about you.”

Quin paused and shook her head.

”How do you get over something like that?”

So he was Stephen now. He remembered the day he gave up that name before anything really started with Quin. (Back when Maxine was still in the picture, he thought with a shudder.) Apparently that chapter was closed now, and they would continue this argument in the doorway.

There was one foothold he could take from what she said, and he jumped on it. "You know plenty about me, honest. You know where I grew up, the things I like and don't like, pretty much all of my opinions-- hell, you know that I was scared of the dark til I was ten." There were plenty of lies he told in his life, but a surprising amount of truths were told to Quin, not that it mattered now.

"You didn't know my name; didn't mean you didn't know me." Stephen took a deep breath, looking off to the side. "But I get that I lied to you in a big way, and I'm sorry about that. Stephen Graves... there are some demons attached to that name, and I just wanted to run away from them as Nate." How could he explain that in a way she would accept?

He kept saying things, but they really just didn’t make anything better. That other name didn’t mean anything….there were demons attached to that name…

He’d told her so much truth, but how could she be sure.

She just looked at him and shook her head.

”It’s your name. Every time I said that name, every time I talked to someone else about you. It’s not just your lie. It‘s been mine now too.”


Quin took a deep breath.

”Were you ever going to tell me? Didn’t I deserve to know?”

He had made her a liar. Nothing he was going to say was going to take the truth out of that. And yet, he had to press on.

"I thought about it all the time... The kid you met, Stephen Graves, he was still good. What he ended up growing up into... was someone who was great at making mistakes.

"I didn't tell you because I wanted Nate Holloway to be the truth. A fresh start to be a man who deserves you."

He felt a knot in his chest, but he managed a weak chuckle. "Sure, sounds stupid now."

Nate sighed, hands in his pockets. "I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want Stephen Graves to ruin the one good thing I've ever had."

More excuses. Sure, there were a lot of great reasons why he hadn’t told her about his real self. There were lots of awesome reasons why she hadn’t deserved to have the truth from him.

Quin’s eyes narrowed as he finished speaking.

”Because this was better. I got to find out from terrified, twelve-year-old you.” She said, words sticking in her throat a bit as she tried to talk. It was hard to talk to him face to face like this…maybe phone would have been better. The last thing she wanted was to end up crying.


”I couldn’t even ask him any questions. What kind of human being would I have been then?” she was angry, still so angry.

”I just keep going back to the fact that if you kept something this huge from me…what else is there? Why couldn’t you just be you?”

Stephen stopped himself from saying something stupid like, "In my defense, how was I supposed to see that coming?" Sure, it was a very unlikely situation for her to discover who he was, but the point stood that, to her, he should have been the one to tell her.

And just when he was unready for it, she asked the question he knew she would. It was the only question he literally dreaded: "What else is there?" What else did she keep from him? He had to make a decision he knew deep down he would eventually face.

Nate was chewing on his lip in frustration. "You're too important to lose to secrets. If you let me in... I'll tell you everything."

He wanted to come in.

There was more.

Quin let her head fall back against the door frame and closed her eyes. It would have been easy to simply walk into the apartment, close the door, and let this all end. Somehow the redhead knew that if she did that, he would leave her alone.

Was that what she wanted though?

Quin opened her eyes and looked at Stephen for the first time full-on in the face, then stepped to the side and gestured inside.

”This doesn’t mean anything. I just think I deserve to know everything.”

The moment dragged out, like the ticking of a clock slowing down. What he was certain was three years later, Quin stepped aside and begrudgingly welcomed him

Nate walked in, but he chose to stand rather than sit. Sitting was for someone who was not in trouble, and he was not sure if he would have to make a dash for the door at some point. Some instincts never faded.

There was a choice: Nate could save his relationship or he could make the choice that would break them up. "You deserve to know everything," he agreed.

"When I developed my powers, I was a kid, and I used to play around with them when no one was around in the orphanage. There was one night when someone caught me, and I got scared. That was after I was twelve." He wanted her to realize that she met him before everything went wrong.

The decision had to be made: true story or another lie. "I lived on the streets. I just wanted to survive... and that's how I ended up becoming a conman."

Nate made the choice, and it was likely the choice was to put the final bullet in their relationship.

Quin followed Stephen into the apartment and shut the door, leaning against it like she was blocking all possible escape routes. She could see that look in his eyes, like he wanted to bolt any second.

The first part of his story was sad, and one that seemed to be far too familiar for teenage mutants. Someone had found out what he could do, and he'd run away. He'd lived on the streets.

For a moment, Quin's heart went out to him. She'd seen that kid, and it was terrible to think about him on the streets all by himself. He'd done things he wasn't proud of, he'd done what he had to do to survive. Was that the root of this whole thing? That when he was a kid he'd had to con people out of money to survive on the streets?

For the first time, Quin felt a small crack in the angry armor she'd built up. Was she really overreacting? Uncertainty made her wrap her arms around her middle.

"So why couldn't you tell me about that?" she said, "You were a kid...it doesn't make it right...but..."

She paused. He was so solemn about the whole thing, so nervous.

"When did you change your name?" she asked.

Quin was softening noticeably, but it was because she did not fully understand the gravity of what he was explaining to her.

There was another choice now; he could leave his story there, and that would be enough to end the fight and give her just enough truth to fix their relationship.

"Quin... it didn't stop when I was a kid. It became a way of life, and I was good at it."

Well, it was a good relationship while it lasted.

"Quin... Nate Holloway was the name I picked when I came to New York. You and the Mansion are the reason I chose Nate Holloway over Stephen Graves."

And now he could only wait and pray she did not keep a gun in the waistband of her sweatpants.

Part of Quin almost wished that he had lied to her when she asked when the fake name stuff had stopped, she'd set it all up for him perfectly. All he'd had to do was walk in, take the bait, and they could have gone on with things like before.

The problem was that somewhere deep down, she'd have always known.

Just like she did now.

It hadn't ever stopped. All of this stuff with the fake names and the conning. That was who he really was. Quin didn't know when she'd started crying, or which emotion out of the bundle that had built up inside her was going to surface first, but she took a deep breath and swiped at her eyes with the sleeve of the cardigan she'd thrown on earlier in the day.

"So...that name. The one...it was all supposed to be for another con?"

So many questions. So many things that she didn't want answers to.

Not only had he been lying to her ever since they'd met, he was also a criminal. The cop in Quin was livid, calling for blood and justice. He'd said his full name, his real name. All she had to do was run it through the system. If he'd conned that long, he'd been caught at some point...

Quin put her hands over her ears and shook her head. Sometimes the cop just didn't get her way.

"No. Stop. Don’t tell me anymore. If you tell me anymore I'll have to take you in. Please don't make me do that..." she said, pleading.

She and the Mansion had been what turned his life around. She wanted to believe him, but if that had been the case, why had he continued to lie?

"Why couldn't you have just told me....?" she muttered miserably, frantically trying to figure out some way for this to work.

It was almost a relief that he could give one honest answer that did not sound terrible. "No, Nate was never the alias for a con. I swear on my life, Nate Holloway was never a con. He was a man that met some people in New York and that was it."

Her voice was less angry now, but it was more painful for the both of them. She did not want him to go on, but she wanted to know why he never told her before. "Because... so many reasons... you're a cop, Quin." The first answer had to be the most blunt. "If I told you, I knew you would have no choice, and I wanted to believe I wouldn't have to put you in that position.

"I didn't want it to happen because... well, I'm selfish." His eyes stared dedicatedly to a single spot on the floor, not wanting to look up. "I've never been happier than when I was with you, and I didn't see a way where I could tell you and this wouldn't end." This discussion, case in point.

Nate looked up, desperate for any way to prove to her that he meant what he said. He offered his arms, wrists up. "If you need to, take me in, but I'm done lying to you." If it would prove his honesty, he would do the one thing he never thought he would do in his life: he would offer himself up to the police. "I can't change what I did, Quin, but if there is anything on this damned Earth I can do to fix it, I'll do it."