Well, Tarin decided, at least Robert had brought beer.

Lee said they were watching hockey and Tarin couldn’t help but smile at her a little, “I knew it.” He said with no small amount of satisfaction regarding Lee’s interest in the sport.

Off Lee went to the kitchen and into the living room came Robert. “Hey.” He said casually with a little wave and nods of the head, attempting to appear far more relaxed than he was feeling.

Lee returned and made a more…formal introduction and Tarin found himself a bit confused at the other man’s reaction to Tarin being well…himself.

“Why do people keep doing that?” He asked Lee as she sat back down in her previously occupied spot. Tarin supposed that was probably better than the alternative, but he was definitely grateful for the beer to occupy his hands.

Then Lee was snapping at her brother in a way that made it clear that there had been some…tension between her older brother and the other Tarin.

This Tarin honestly couldn’t blame the guy and wondered if Robert had gotten the only dose of self-preservation available to the Smith siblings.

Still, Tarin stayed out of this one. He vastly preferred the type of attention he’d had from Lee before her brother had arrived to the ire directed at said brother right now. Heaven forbid that ire be turned in his direction.

Lee glanced over at Tarin with a slight frown when he asked why people kept reacting like this when they were introduced to him

But then her attention was on Robert because of his comment.

“Oh relax,” Robert said as he cracked his beer open. “It's a good thing, isn't it? Though, I am curious why he's here. It's a little weird, isn't it?”

At this point, Lee decided to just ignore her brother for a few minutes. The reason Tarin was there was not a topic of conversation that would go well with Robert. Though Lee was glad that it sounded like Rachel had said nothing about it to him.

Instead, she turned to look at Tarin. “People keep reacting that way because you don't actually look anything like him,” Lee answered his earlier question, her tone much more relaxed than when she had been talking to her brother. “Well, there's a family resemblance, but you don't look like the Tarin we all knew.”

Nope, Tarin was not going to answer that question for Lee. If Robert didn’t already know why Tarin was there in the apartment, Tarin was not going to be the one to fill him in. Lee could handle that one and give her brother as much or as little detail as she chose. To that end, Tarin simply popped open the can and took a sip. Robert, for his part, seemed to be taking Lee’s irritation in stride.

When Tarin had asked why people were reacting the way they were when they found out who he was, he’d meant it more rhetorically than anything, but Lee actually had an answer.

“Huh.” It was a loaded word this evening.

It wasn’t that it was a particularly outlandish thing that he would look different from his counterpart here. It varied by the person how many differences there were in that regard, but with as similar as Lee had described them being in some ways Tarin was surprised that the visual dissimilarities were apparently so striking.

“Kevin looks a lot like my brother did when we were kids.” He didn’t have any visual evidence to corroborate the claim and hadn’t ever seen his brother as an adult to confirm, but it was suddenly amusing to think that the other Tarin could be wandering around on the other side of the rift not knowing that a random Texan that could be his twin was running around.

In all the shifting around and movement of the last several minutes, Tarin had ended up with the remote again and flipped through the channels until he found the pre-game. Game 7s were always exciting and while he wasn’t a particular hockey fan Tarin was familiar enough with the sport to enjoy it.

“You guys are going to have to fill me in a bit. I’ve been following the playoffs, but I’ll admit I don’t keep up much during the season.”

To be honest, Lee's initial plan was to just ignore Robert's question about why Tarin was there. If she was able to ignore it for long enough, the game would start and Lee wouldn't have to answer.

But her blatant ignoring of the question was forgotten when Tarin commented about Kevin. Her head tilted slightly as she looked at Tarin with a small smile? “He does?” she asked. While she had looked at pictures of the Brooks Brothers as children when she had been in Texas, at the time her focus had been on looking at a young Tarin. And while Lee could see bits of his father’s appearance in Kevin, it apparently wasn’t as strong a resemblance as what Kevin had with this Tarin’s brother. “Which one?

“There’s a fair similarity between you and Josh,” Lee continued, her voice thoughtful as she looked at Tarin. “But you have Adele’s eyes. Same shape, and I think just about the same colour.”

The small smile that had been on her face had grown slightly as she spoke. Though disappeared when she heard Robert’s voice. Right, he was there now.

“As interesting as that all is, Em, that doesn’t explain why he’s here.”

Lee took a breath as she turned to look at her brother now. “We’d been watching some movies this evening,” Lee explained as the tv started changing channels. Tarin must have had the remote as she didn’t see Robert with it. “And now, hockey. Which I have to say is much better than spending the night watching baseball.” Lee finished, making the playful jab at Tarin without even looking over at him.

“You guys are going to have to fill me in a bit. I’ve been following the playoffs, but I’ll admit I don’t keep up much during the season.”

Robert leaned around Lee a bit at this point to look at Tarin. “What team?” He asked, actually sounding interested in talking with Tarin. It seemed weird to Lee, but they were talking about hockey. Opening her beer finally, Lee took a long sip. “The Leafs had a good season so far, managed to clinch a playoff spot, though Boston is always a tough team.”

“James, my older brother.” Tarin offered when Lee asked which brother Kevin looked like, he assumed this was one of the little details that were different since he didn’t have a brother named Josh.

Some things were the same though, and Tarin’s heart did a funny little skip when Lee mentioned his Mom….no the Mom of the Tarin on this side of the rift. Whose eyes he apparently shared. For not the first time since he’d been around Lee, Tarin wondered about his family on the other side of the rift.

“Really?” He said, a conflicted little smile on his face.

“As interesting as that all is, Em, that doesn’t explain why he’s here.”

“Em?” Tarin said, head tilting slightly. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that Lee might be short for something…like Emily. It honestly kind of suited her.

Tarin tuned back into the conversation between Lee and her brother to realize she was very carefully avoiding the real reason that Tarin was there. Again, he completely deferred to Lee’s wisdom in dealing with her brother…but Rachel knew the gist of why Tarin was staying with Lee and he couldn’t imagine that staying a secret in any universe.

It also made it sound like they’d been having a movie date. Tarin liked that more than he would have ever admitted.

Still. It was none of her business, and it seemed they had successfully transitioned the conversation to hockey. Giving Lee a look when she trashed baseball, yet again, he leaned forward a bit to talk to Robert.

“I’ve honestly been impressed with Toronto. Their center is really fun to watch and they definitely aren’t afraid to mix it up out there.” As for Boston, Tarin waved a dismissive hand, “Boston is fine, but I never really seen anything that made me want them to win. It should be a good game if the rest of the series has been any indication.”

Kevin looked like Tarin’s older brother James. Lee’s head tilted slightly. There was no James in the Brooks family that Lee was aware of. At least not on this side of the rift. But could that be the difference between the two eldest like this Tarin’s appearance was different from Kevin’s father? “Josh is the oldest,” Lee explained with a slight nod and a smile. “Ash in the middle.”

Then Lee saw the slight smile on Tarin’s face, like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think. She nodded again as she gave him a more reassuring smile. “I haven’t seen her in years, but yes, you do…”

And Tarin didn’t miss when Robert had called her ‘Em’. She gave him a slightly warning look right before she had turned to look at her brother.

Lee blinked in surprise. Her brother Robert Smith was having a calm, friendly talk with Tarin Brooks. It didn’t matter in her mind that this was a Tarin Brooks he had only met minutes earlier, a Tarin Brooks who had lived in another world until six years ago. They were talking without threats and accusations. They were talking, not arguing. All Lee was able to do for a few minutes was look between the two men in surprise as she listened to them talk about hockey.

“Historically, Boston isn’t even that great of a team,” Robert explained. “But the rivalry has been there for so long, that Boston fans are convinced they’re better than the Leafs. Not true, but they have been managing to make Toronto work for it this series.”

Yes, this was just bizarre, Lee thought as she continued to look back and forth between the two men. All previous thoughts about ‘subjecting’ Tarin to hockey in exchange for her watching baseball were now gone.

The smile that Tarin gave Lee in response to the look he got when he questioned the nickname that Robert had used suggested they might be coming back to the topic later.

But then, there was hockey.

Tarin listened to what Robert had to say intently, pieces of a larger puzzle slipping into place that explained a lot of what he’d seen in the few games he’d watched this season.

”Ahhh, a rivalry explains so much.” He said, gesturing with his free hand at the TV, “I have to admit that I haven’t looked into the history of rivalries on this side much, but that explains why things have been so intense in this series.”

Rivalries always had a different energy. As Robert had said, it didn’t matter if one team was objectively stronger than the other. It didn’t matter if the teams had been rivals for so long that the players didn’t even know what had initially started the bad blood. Rivalries ran deep.

“That changes everything.” He said with a grin, nodding at Lee like everything made sense now.

As he looked at her he couldn’t help but think, if only everything were so easy to understand.

Tarin and Robert were now sitting there talking about the Toronto/Boston rivalry. Lee just shook her head, turning her eyes to the tv as the pre-game started drawing to a close. It was strange, this getting along. A good thing, she couldn’t help but think, but very strange. Far too much for her to sort out tonight. So instead of trying, Lee just took another sip of her beer.

At this rate, she was going to need another before the game actually started.

Then she saw Tarin turn to look at her. Though she wasn’t sure how she knew he did, his head hadn’t needed to move too much to do so and she’d been focused on the tv screen. But when he did, Lee’s head turned to look back at him, smiling when she saw his grin. “Oh it does, does it?” She asked him, her head tilting as she waited for an answer. “How so?”

“You know perfectly well both teams play differently when they’re playing each other,” Robert butted in. Though it was only when he spoke that Lee realized that wasn’t what she had been talking about. She wasn’t sure exactly what she had been talking about, referring to, but it wasn’t hockey. “You spent half a game talking about just that a couple months ago.”

Even as she started to respond to her brother, Lee’s eyes stayed on Tarin for a few moments. “Well, Tarin was frustrated with my lack of interest and knowledge in sports in general earlier, so I was wondering why he thought it changed everything.” Only as she finished speaking did Lee finally turn her head to look at Robert. “Maybe the ‘everything’ he was talking about is different? A lot more things were different over there than I would have expected.”

”Oh it does, does it? How so?”

Tarin had opened his mouth to respond, but Robert answered instead. Tarin didn’t know why, but he felt like Lee hadn’t been asking about the game.

Why was his mouth so dry?

“Well, Tarin was frustrated with my lack of interest and knowledge in sports in general earlier, so I was wondering why he thought it changed everything.”

Tarin shook his head at Lee’s shockingly unfair assessment, “I just can’t believe you’ve lived in New York all this time without developing a healthy respect for baseball.” He said, still watching Lee’s face the whole time.

Lee turned away then to talk to Robert and Tarin took another drink of his beer as she pointed out that he could have been talking about anything considering how much was different between the worlds.

He hadn’t been, but again…he was not going to get between Lee and his brother unless he was directly spoken to.

Tarin had opened his mouth and he was going to answer her question. Until Robert had opened his big mouth. Robert always did have a bad habit of that.

Lee had taken a sip of her beer as she waited for Robert to answer. But this time Tarin was the one who spoke first. Lee shrugged as her eyes drifted back over to Tarin. Who was again (or still) looking straight at her. “You're the first person who's ever really said anything about me not liking baseball,” Lee told him with another shrug. “Well, second. I guess it's popular in Columbia, too. But when she found out I was Canadian, I guess that was explanation enough?”

Lee took another sip of her beer, apparently finishing it off. Boy, that had gone down quick. “But unless you're going to back out of forcing me to learn,” Lee continued, teasingly as she looked at Tarin. “I don't know what the problem is.”

“Baseball?” Robert asked, his tone sounding very surprised. “You wouldn't even sit through mine or Doug's games.”

“Your point?” Lee asked her brother, slowly moving her eyes to her other side. But stopped as she saw the Chinese food that was still sitting on the table in front of them. Leftovers that hadn't been put away before Tarin had taken sleep, and then…everything else had happened.

“I should get dinner put away,” she announced, standing up and beginning to gather food containers. Without even waiting to hear if there was a response to that, Lee took what she'd been able to easily carry to the kitchen.

Then just stood leaning against the counter once she set the food down, her eyes closed as she took a breath.

He was going to have to ask Lee more about what had happened about Columbia. At this point it had to have been a while ago, but it came up often enough that it had clearly been a formative experience. Someone else had apparently tried to impress upon Lee the art of the sport, but had been discouraged by her nationality.

Tarin was not so weak, and when Lee suggested that he was attempting to back out of helping her learn he scoffed, “Not a chance…”

Robert chimed in again there, pointing out that Lee had never even attended his games..or Doug’s? Was there another Smith sibling? Were they going to pop out of the closet the next time Tarin thought he was alone?

Lee was getting up now though, and gathering the takeout that they’d eaten earlier in the night.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Robert gave Tarin an odd look, “She actually agreed to watch baseball? With you? Why?” He asked, and Tarin shrugged his shoulders and took another sip of beer before setting the can and standing to gather the rest of the food. “Technically she didn’t agree to watch it with me. She said she’d fall asleep while I watched it and I expressed firm belief that I could get her interested.”

He grinned at the other man guilelessly, “I guess time will tell who was right.”

To the kitchen Tarin went, intending to drop the food in the fridge, but when he came around the corner, Lee was standing with her hands braced on the counter with her eyes closed. Instantly concerned, Tarin sat the food down on the counter and moved to her side, “Hey, you okay?”

Of course Tarin wasn’t going to give up. He’d already proven to be quite stubborn, so it really shouldn’t surprise Lee that he wasn’t going to give up.

When Tarin made his comment about getting Lee to watch baseball, Robert’s expression became confused. And a little concerned. Why was this man going to be around his sister’s apartment to be able to watch something she had absolutely no interest in to start with? But more than that, if he was going to put baseball on the tv while he was here (for whatever reason), why the hell would Emily just fall asleep rather than just tell him to get lost? She’d done that to Robert many times for far less reason.

Though Robert found that he liked this Tarin Brooks much better (it really wasn’t a high bar, though), he was definitely going to have to speak with his sister about this. Something didn’t sound right.

---

Lee straightened up when she felt someone entering the kitchen, pulling the fridge open so she could start putting the food away.

“Hey, you okay?”

Lee nodded, looking up at Tarin. So much further up than she’d needed to look while they had been sitting on the couch. “Yeah, of course I am,” She replied. But she had agreed to let him help her, similarly to how she’d been helping him. And while nothing was actually wrong, she was aware that Tarin already knew something was up. So she took a deep breath, letting it out as she continued speaking. “It’s just…really weird. Robert actually seems to like you, and to be honest, I have no idea what to make of that.”

Once the leftovers were safely stowed, Tarin turned and leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed. It was better that way.

Lee said she was okay, but Tarin could tell that something was up

It turned out to be the fact that Robert apparently liked him and Lee didn’t know what to do about that. Tarin looked across the kitchen and down at Lee, wanting to ask for more details, but also keenly aware that they were in here and Robert was out there.

“I guess that means I’m 2 for 2 on Smith siblings?” he said with a small smile, “But I’m guessing from the way you two were going after each other that I’m missing a whole lot of context.”

After the Chinese was in the fridge, Tarin turned, leaning back against the counter. Lee turned sideways, looking up at him. “I suppose you are,” she agreed.

Tarin was guessing, correctly, that he was missing context about the issues between her brother and ex-husband. She nodded. “There’s a lot of history and issues,” Lee said, her voice quiet so there’d be no chance of Robert hearing. Her eyes also dropped down to the counter. “But it boils down to the fact that Robert’s seen me after some merges. And no matter how we tried to explain things to him, I think he believes even today that he abused me.”

Oh yeah…that…that was a lot of context.

Tarin's jaw may have dropped slightly when Lee said it because she didn’t seem able to look at him.

It had been that bad? It had been so often that Lee’s brother had been concerned that there was something that Lee was hiding about what happened behind closed doors between her and the other Tarin.

No wonder Lee had gone to such great lengths to cover up the bruises she’d gotten when he had hit her with a chair. Twice. No wonder she’d gone to such great lengths to hide the truth of his presence here from both her sister and her brother.

It made Tarin feel a little sick about his role in this entire thing…because what brother would want their sibling to be in such a situation. What would it have been like to hear her try to explain away what had happened, and kept happening.

Tarin liked Robert even more. Tarin knew Lee though, and he knew how much Lee valued her independence. God, what a mess that whole thing had to have been.

Tarin wanted to hug Lee, sorry for bringing up painful memories and putting her in this situation with her brother when they’d just been trying to watch a hockey game. He wasn’t going to make things worse though.

“I’m sorry.” He said simply. It just wasn’t his place to say any more, and he was sorry.

“I’m gonna head back out there. I think the game is starting.” He said, reaching a hand out as if to put it on Lee’s shoulder but letting it drop because he didn’t want to hurt her…and because it suddenly just felt wrong.

So back Tarin went to the couch, amiable and relaxed…because what else was he going to do?