It had been a few days since Kevin had returned from visiting his grandparents with Rachel. A few days since Tarin had moved into the spare room in the apartment.

All things considered, things had been going rather well so far that week. Tarin was still having nightmares, which was not unexpected. And Lee could tell that Tarin was feeling awkward, uncomfortable, at times being there.

Kevin was doing great, too. Lee knew that it had to be weird for him, but some of his obsession with finding out about mutants’ powers that he had had when he was younger was coming out. There were times when the two were in the same room that Kevin was simply asking Tarin about his powers.

Then there were other times that Kevin was moody and closed himself in his room. Some of it, Lee knew, was just his normal teenage moodiness. And some of it had to do with his father. And the Tarin Brooks that was in this world now.

But it was Wednesday morning, Kevin was off to school, and Lee was making her way back into the apartment, almost empty coffee mug in hand. There hadn’t been a day yet that Tarin had been out of his room before Kevin was off for the day. Though she wasn’t sure whether that was intentional or not. If Lee had to guess, It was probably because Tarin was still sleeping.

Stopping in the kitchen to top up her coffee, Lee then made her way into the living room.

The beauty of being a small-business owner was that you were essentially able to set your own schedule. Luckily for Tarin, whose sleep schedule was still intermittent at best, the paranormal community of New York and their patrons didn’t favor early morning meetings.

Having roommates was…interesting…in mostly good ways. Now that he had pants to wear at night, having Lee around to help after he had the intense nightmares that just didn’t seem to be going away as quickly as the rest of the trauma from the previous weeks was invaluable. He always woke up shaking, sick, and in a deep melancholy that the middle of the night didn’t help.

Tarin’s other new roommate was pretty cool too. After an initially slightly awkward introduction to Lee’s son, at which point Tarin had noticed and kept to himself that the child bore an almost uncanny resemblance to Tarin’s brother… things had settled into a fairly comfortable monotony over the last few days.

Sure, the kid was a teenager and that brought with it a number of teenager things that Tarin did his best to ignore and stay completely out of, but Kevin was curious and personable…and had a ton of questions. Mostly related to Tarin’s mutation. Tarin wondered just how much the kid remembered about his Dad’s powers and if that had something to do with his curiosity, but they’d so far managed to avoid travel down that incredibly awkward line of discussion so Tarin simply answered as honestly as possible without giving any more detail than Lee had indicated she was comfortable giving.

Tarin had taken to waiting for them to leave in the morning before getting up and starting his own morning routine. He always started the morning with some pushups and sit ups and general stretching to get the blood flowing, then hit the shower so he was ready and out of the way by the time Lee got back.

Right on time as Tarin was finishing up getting ready he heard the door open and close to announce that she’d come home. Stopping by his room…which was starting to shape up nicely if he did say so himself, to drop off his PJs and towel, Tarin made his way out to the kitchen to grab some yogurt and try to decide if he wanted to make more, or grab something on his way to the shop in a little bit.

“Morning!” he called out to announce his presence in the common space.

Tarin hadn’t been out of his room before she’d left to get Kevin off to school, but as he had been the last couple days he was out and…eating yogurt this morning she noticed as she stepped back toward the kitchen. Her outfit this morning was a little more than the basic blouse and skirt she’d been wearing the previous few days; Matt had said something about a meeting or something this afternoon. Honestly she hadn’t really paid much attention as he’d been talking while she was trying to do his paperwork, but she knew she was supposed to be there at 1:30. So she had chosen a black pencil skirt with a white blouse and black vest.

“Morning,” she responded with a smile. “How was the rest of your night? Did you want any coffee this morning? There’s still some left in the pot.”

The rest of the night because, like every night so far, he had had a nightmare the night before. Which Lee had woken him up from. And while she was always tired and it was hard to get herself out of bed, she had done it every night. Plus, by the time she was back home and he was out of his room in the mornings, Lee had already gathered enough energy from people on the street that no one would be able to guess she hadn’t gotten much sleep.

“When’s the first appointment today?”

Lee asked how the rest of his night had been and Train shrugged. “Fine.” he said, suddenly more interested in his yogurt than the conversation at hand. It was easier to talk about it all when it was dark and he could barely see. When he felt completely untethered from his own body after the disorienting feeling the dreams…or memories…or whatever they were brought on.

When it was light and they were standing there having breakfast and coffee and the sun was shining it was all suddenly a bit more difficult. “It seems like after my subconscious gets it all out it doesn’t feel the need to do it again…for a solid 24 hours at least.”

He took a deep breath, “I am sorry though…I know rest is hard for you.” Lee hated it when he apologized, but Tarin was going to keep doing it anyway.

As for when his first appointment was, “Not until 12:30.” he said, “But pretty busy through the afternoon and early evening, I’ve got some of the folks I rescheduled from Monday coming in.” Business on this side was good, and it didn’t hurt that Tarin had inherited a cadre of clients from the original Tarin. The people had taken the whole transition pretty happily in stride. As long as they got to continue to speak to their people, they didn’t care who was facilitating the conversation.

“What about you?” he asked, noting that Lee was a bit more dressed up today. Tarin had to admit that when she’d said she worked at a bar, he hadn’t expected the kind of clothing that she seemed to wear when she wasn’t taking a jog or saving peoples’ lives. It didn’t matter what she wore though, Tarin had noticed, she wore it all well. It was the confidence and presence, he’d decided, but hadn’t shared.

The talk about the night before had kind of soured Tarin’s plans for a bigger breakfast and as he finished the yogurt he tossed the empty container in the trash, cleaned his spoon like a good roommate, and put it in the drying rack.

“You think they’re ever going to stop?” he said, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms, face a bit haunted, “I don’t think I’m ever going to just get used to it…”

Lee nodded and made a mental note not to ask about Tarin’s sleep after the fact. Talking about it, at least very generally, at night after she had woken him up sometimes seemed to help, but apparently it wasn’t so good during the day. Because what had appeared to be a remarkably good mood suddenly seemed to dissolve a bit.

She was actually a little surprised that Tarin’s first appointment wasn’t until the afternoon. In the past, well, at least when she’d worked in the shop and had gotten the appointment system working better, there always seemed to be at least one morning even on slow days.

But what did she know about it anymore? She hadn’t worked in the shop in over a decade. Maybe things had changed.

“Matt’s got some sort of meeting set up this afternoon,” Lee replied with a shrug. “To be honest, I didn’t really pay much attention to him yesterday when he was trying to explain. Most of the time, I end up more prepared than he is for these meetings even if I’ve only had an hour’s notice.”

Then Tarin asked a much more serious, more personally relevant question. Lee couldn’t stop the small frown that turned her lips down. “Completely? Maybe not,” Lee admitted softly. “But they’ll get less and less common. In my experience, they’ll eventually become rare enough that you’ll forget about them.”

“Is there any aspect of your life where you aren’t the responsible party?” Tarin asked, genuinely curious and hoping Lee didn’t take the question the wrong way. It did seem to be a trend. Lee held pretty much everything together for everyone. How was it possible for her to be more prepared for a meeting than the person who had scheduled it?

As far as the rest was concerned, Tarin simply nodded and sighed. As weird as it was to say or think so, Lee knew better than he did what he was dealing with. If she said the dreams would go away over time, then she was probably right.

There was no way he’d ever forget though. The dreams were so visceral, so real. Even thinking about it while fully awake made him shudder a little bit, made the kitchen seem a little stuffier and more closed in.

“I hope it’s sooner rather than later.” Tarin said, taking a deep breath and trying to shrug the feeling off, “You’ve got plenty on your plate without having to take care of a grown ass man with bad dreams.”

Lee actually laughed a bit at Tarin’s question. “I’m sure there’s one or two things where I’m not,” she replied jokingly. “In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to worry a bit.

“Though,” Lee continued, her voice growing slightly more serious. “I’m definitely not the most responsible around when I’m at the bar and I’m not working…”

That…Why did she say that, Lee wondered, taking another long sip of her coffee to attempt to hide any embarrassment that might be evident. It’s not like she’d find herself making out with someone in a bar, completely forgetting that there was even anyone else around them. Stuff like that wasn’t going to happen again, not for her.

“I hope it’s sooner, too,” Lee whispered. “But that’s not why. I’ve been the person needing woken up from nightmares before. So I know how much easier it is to deal with them when there’s someone else there…”

It did seem that Lee had a fun side, “For some reason I feel like your idea of irresponsible and pretty much everyone else’s are really different though.” Tarin lightly teased as Lee pointed out that her off-duty antics at the bar were less than responsible. It wasn’t that it was hard to imagine her having fun, it was more that it seemed like things would constantly come up that Lee felt she had to handle on her own. What did Lee consider to be irresponsible?

They were back to the nightmares though and Tarin shook his head as Lee explained that she knew what it was like to need someone to wake her up.

Empathy. That was what was so nice about not having to deal with this on his own. It was sad and kind of sucked that Lee could empathize because she’d been in similar situations…but at least he could say things to her and she didn’t look at him like he was crazy. At least he knew he could talk to her about what had happened and she wouldn’t run screaming for the hills…or the cops.

“It really is easier…and I really do appreciate it..” Tarin said.

“Though I’d rather talk more about what ‘irresponsible Lee’ is like.” he said with what he hoped was a winning grin. “Because I just have such a tough time picturing it.”

Lee nodded. Simply having someone there made things after traumas like these easier to deal with.

But that was apparently enough of that kind of talk, because apparently Tarin wanted to know what this ‘irresponsible Lee’ was like. It didn’t matter that the last time something like that had happened was at least 6 years ago. It didn’t matter that it hadn’t been a ‘regular occurrence’ since Kevin was born. It didn’t matter that it was never going to happen again. A blush quickly covered her face, faster than she was able to turn to the coffee maker to top her drink up again.

“Oh. That….Well…” Lee said, still not turning to look anywhere close to Tarin. “It’s happened, in the past, that I sometimes completely forget the fact that there are other people present…”

Yeah…that explanation, even leaving the details of what activities tend to occur when she forgets about the world, did not help one bit, and her blush just grew darker.

The subject change had been successful and Tarin couldn’t help but grin as Lee tried to explain herself.

Was she blushing?

Lee said that, in the past, she’d been so irresponsible that she had completely forgotten that there were other people present.

“I think you’ve just described the universal experience of every college girl in New York City, possibly on the planet.” Tarin said, chuckling.

“Nothing too scandalous.”

Except that it kind of was. And that there were times that it had happened while on her first drink, so alcohol couldn’t even be said to be the cause.

But if Tarin wanted to think that it was just drinking a little too much, that was good. It’s not like he’d ever see it happen.

Taking a breath and then another sip of her coffee, Lee thought that the blush might have faded enough that she was willing to turn around again. As she was turning, though, she heard a knock on the door.

“Who in the world could that be?” Lee asked with a confused frown, the question mostly rhetorical. Other than delivery people, and sometimes Kevin’s friends, no one really ever knocked on the door. Lee glanced over at Tarin as she started making her way out of the kitchen. “Are you expecting anyone?”

Having made it to the door, coffee cup still in hand, Lee unlocked it and pulled it open. “Rachel?” Lee asked, her frown deepening. “What’s up? Why are you here?”

Oh…that blush was stuck firmly in place. There was more to the story than she was letting on, Tarin just knew it.

For some reason, that blush was so seemingly out of place on Lee it absolutely intrigued him. Lee, who was so in control of every situation. Lee who took everything in stride.

What was it that could possibly have made her blush like this?

Tarin was about to push, maybe tease just a little bit more to see if he could get her to spill the story when a knock sounded at the door.

A knock?

Anywhere else a knock on the door wouldn’t have felt so odd. A knock on an apartment door in New York City was a bit strange though. In order to get to someone’s door to knock, you needed access to the building and not just everyone had that.

Lee took off to answer the door and Tarin took the chance to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge. There was still coffee, but the caffeine felt like a bit much this morning.

“Rachel? What are you doing here?”

Well. This morning had taken an interesting right turn. Rachel had been gone the other night by the time Tarin had come back to the apartment and Lee hadn’t really shared how her sister had felt about the whole arrangement. That the other woman was here…

Tarin took a long drink out of the water bottle and tried to decide if it was better to stay in the kitchen or make himself visible.

After a moment he sighed and leaned around the corner to see Lee talking to who could only be her sister. Her very tall sister. Interesting.

Thinking he’d just slip on past and hang out in the living room until they were done chatting, Tarin did just that.

“Why do you think I’m here, Lee?” Rachel asked, slowly stepping into the apartment, trying to get around Lee’s body blocking her way.

“Now’s not a great time, Rach,” Lee replied, shifting to the side to try and continue blocking her sister from making her way entirely into the apartment. “And shouldn’t you be at work? After all the complaining you did about being away on Monday…”

“Oh, that means he’s still here, isn’t he?” Rachel said with a grin as she tried to dodge around between Lee and the wall. Lee managed to get in her sister’s way, blocking her, but she also bumped her right shoulder against the wall. Causing Lee to grunt softly in pain, not moving just barely long enough for Rachel to push the door further open and hurry into the apartment.

Lee took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh before she locked the door again and made her way toward the living room that Tarin had disappeared into. The living room that Rachel was currently standing at the edge of, her head tilted as she stared at him.

“I thought you said it was Tarin,” Rachel said, turning to look back at Lee as she walked up. Then her voice lowered to what could only be described as a stage whisper. “...Wait! Did you actually have a date last night that stayed over?”

Rachel was very tall and Rachel was very pushy. Tarin wasn’t sure what he had expected when Lee had kept mentioning her sister, but somehow this wasn’t it.

Rachel was pretty, Tarin supposed, in a different way from Lee, but the family resemblance was obvious enough with the two of them close to one another.

And….she was apparently here to see…him.

Oh boy. The morning had taken a very interesting turn indeed and Tarin prepared himself for the slightly awkward introduction that was sure to come and the even more awkward small talk that would follow.

And then things got [/i]way[/i] more awkward very quickly, right as Tarin was taking another long drink of that water.

He choked with the effort of not spitting the water and had to stand for a minute to catch his breath before I spoke.

“Uh…I am Tarin?” He said, before clearing his throat, “You must be Rachel.”

Lee nodded when Rachel questioned what she had said about it being Tarin who had merged, and that she was now helping to get through the aftermath of that.

But that wasn’t the only thing that her sister asked, and Lee’s eyes widened in shock as she stared at Rachel even as she heard Tarin start choking. Eyes darting over quickly to check if he was alright or if he actually needed help, Lee shook her head as she looked back at Rachel. “Of course I didn’t,” she replied. After all the times over the last six years that Lee had turned down Rachel’s attempts to set her up with someone or other, after everything that Lee had told her sister on that front…And that was the first place Rachel’s mind went?

“But he doesn’t lo-” Rachel continued stage whispering to Lee, but was interrupted when Tarin spoke.

“Don’t ask me to explain how other worlds work, Rach,” Lee said, holding her empty hand up. “But this is Tarin Brooks who found himself stuck on this side when the rift closed. Tarin, this is my very nosey little sister, Rachel.” Introductions done, Lee went and sat on the couch. She knew from experience she wasn’t going to get her sister to leave any time soon.