When Lee had finished speaking, the kitchen was silent. After a few moments, she lifted her eyes again, looking up at Tarin. He looked…He definitely looked shocked. It made sense; she’d been hurt during this last merge, but because of where the bruising was, she’d been able to cover it. The only people who knew about it were the two of them, and it had been a week. For Robert to have jumped to the conclusions he had, it meant he had to have been able to see the injuries, or at least some of them.

That had to have been what Tarin was thinking about.. At least as far as Lee expected.

“I’m sorry.”

Lee gave him a small smile. There really wasn’t much else that either of them could say about the situation, was there? Not with Robert sitting out on the couch. Though Lee hoped that would explain why she had avoided telling Robert how they’d ‘run into’ each other and why Tarin was there so fervently.

But then Tarin spoke again, and Lee nodded. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she told him, then frowned when she saw him drop the hand that had looked like he was going to place on her shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt anymore…” She said as he was walking away, out of the kitchen. Though the words only came out as a whisper, so she wasn’t even sure if he heard.

Taking a deep breath as she ran her hand through her hair, Lee turned to the fridge, making sure that everything had been put away properly from dinner before grabbing herself another beer. Only after opening it and taking a sip there in the kitchen did Lee head back to the living room. “Did I miss anything?” she asked as she sat.

“Game just started.” Tarin said when Lee made her way back out to the living room a few moments later.

She looked okay, but Tarin just couldn’t get what they’d talked about out of his head. So many things made so much more sense now. This whole thing that Lee was doing, with him, had just been a way of life. A way of life where she had not only taken care of these merges when they’d happened, but had picked up the pieces afterwards, and defended the other Tarin to the detriment of her relationships with her siblings.

It made Tarin’s heart hurt for her. It made his mind drift back to the distance he’d sought to put between them over the last few days. The distance that had shrunk to virtually nothing in a single evening.

This wasn’t the time though, or the place, to worry about it. Lee had clearly been excited about this game when she’d made plans to watch it with Robert and Tarin was not going to put a damper on the fun.

So he smiled, and did his best to relax.

Lee nodded when Tarin said that the game had just started, taking a sip of her beer before settling into the couch to watch. He’d been right, she’d only missed about the first 20 seconds of the game by the time she’d come out.

But, sitting there between her brother and Tarin was now feeling a little more awkward. Normally when she and Robert watched a game together, they’d sit on opposite sides of the couch, and she’d be curled up with her legs beside her, leaning on the arm of the couch. Sitting between the two men, Lee couldn’t really do that, especially not with what had been happening before Robert had shown up.

Plus, Robert was a lot larger than Kevin was, meaning there was definitely less space between the two men for her. Not that Lee needed a lot of room, but with how she was already feeling awkward about how she was sitting to watch the game, Lee was keenly aware of just how close she was currently sitting to Tarin.

Lee took another long sip of beer, because alcohol was going to make this situation so much better. But she really wasn’t sure what else to do about it. Setting the beer down on her leg, Lee tilted her head to the side as she looked at the tv. This was going to be a long game.

By virtue of the fact that there was literally nowhere else to sit on the couch Lee was right there next to Tarin again, maybe even a bit closer than she’d been before they’d gone to the kitchen to clean up the leftovers.

The quiet intensity was gone though, replaced by something considerably more awkward and Tarin tried to casually scoot as far into the arm of the couch as possible to give Lee a bit more space.

The game was, as expected, a good one. The rivalry between Toronto and Boston pushing both teams into a wild frenzy that could only be personal. It was competitive, and close, and all the things that the seventh game in a series should be.

In the end, Toronto pulled out the win in incredibly satisfying fashion.

Tarin had managed to give Lee as much space as possible, and Lee had Robert had avoided sniping at each other for most of the game.

But now the game was over, and Tarin realized that Robert had never gotten an answer about why Tarin was there.

God, he just didn’t have the energy to be a part of that conversation tonight. Not after the lack of sleep the last week, the ultimately insufficient nap, and whatever it was that had been happening between him and Lee when Robert had shown up at the door.

So. Tarin Brooks, coward, stood up, walked his lone beer can to the trash and stood by the kitchen for a moment before he said, “Well, it was nice to meet you Robert, maybe we can do this again sometime. Night Lee!”

And off he went down the hall. To his room. Where he shut the door. Had he looked back a single time? Nope. Had his steps gotten progressively faster the further he got from the living room. Yep.

Was Lee going to probably kill him? Maybe, but it would probably wait until morning and that was good enough for Tarin.

Quickly changing into his pajama pants and stripping out of his shirt, Tarin dropped down on his bed, intending to spend just a few minutes checking out the baseball scores he’d missed tonight before getting the rest of the way dressed for bed.

The game was good. It was very good.So good that Lee almost completely forgot about the fact that she was sitting very close to Tarin again. Close enough that, if she paid attention to the fact, she could feel the warmth of his leg, of his body beside her.

She definitely didn’t think about that a single time during the game. Nope.

But as the game came to an end, Robert started talking about it, things that the Leafs had done well, complaining about things they’d screwed up. This was normal after a game, and Lee sat there listening as she saw Tarin stand up and grab his empty beer can. Just to throw it out, she was sure. Then he’d be back in the living room with them. Or maybe he was going to grab something to snack on.

It didn’t really matter what different situations Lee ended up thinking were playing out with Tarin in the kitchen. None of them ended up being what actually happened.

“Well, it was nice to meet you Robert, maybe we can do this again sometime. Night Lee!”

Lee’s eyes widened as she spun on the couch to stare at Tarin. Who was actually walking down the hall to his bedroom. With Robert still there. When Robert didn’t know, because she had managed to avoid it all night, that Tarin was living there, staying in Rachel’s old room.

What. The. Actual. F***?

“Wait. Where’s he going, Em?” Lee heard her brother’s voice behind her. His concerned, irritated voice.

Lee closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before turning to face Robert. “To his room, I would guess,” Lee replied, trying to make it sound as though it was obvious. Maybe she could avoid part of this if she could make Robert feel that he shouldn’t have even needed to ask. “It’s been a long week, and he’d already mentioned being tired before you got here.”

“What do you mean ‘his room’? Don’t tell me that he’s actually living here? Does Kevin even know who he is?”

Lee ran her hand through her hair. She’d tried to avoid this tonight, and had actually managed to until Tarin had decided to just go to bed. She was so frustrated and annoyed about that, but she couldn’t do a thing about it until she dealt with her brother.

“Yes, Bobby, he is,” Lee said. She was trying to keep things calm and as simple as possible, both in her head and what was coming out of her mouth, in the hope that that would speed things up. “When we ran into each other again, I found out that he’s just been living in the back of the shop this whole time. It wasn’t great as a place to live 15 years ago, I can’t imagine it’s improved. And since Rachel moved out…It’s not like we need the space for anything, and he’s paying his share of the rent.

“And yes, of course Kevin knows who he is. And when he isn’t being a moody teenager and locking himself in his room like he has been tonight, well Kevin seems to like him.”

---

It took another 15 minutes after that, talking, explaining, arguing, and being careful to leave out certain details while not making it look like she was lying or hiding anything for Lee to get Robert out of the apartment. The moment that she had the door closed between them and locked, Lee turned, walking quickly toward the bedrooms, only pausing long enough to open the door as she burst into Tarin’s room. “What. The. Hell. What was that out there??”

Well. The Mets had won. That was good considering the way the season had been going. Tarin had looked at the game stats, then poked around the other scores from the division for a bit before stopping to think about just how absolutely insane the day had been one more time.

At some point throughout the day he’d seen Rachel, Lee, and met Robert for the first time. He’d had delicious Chinese food, taken a nap, and then…something had passed between him and Lee. What that something had been, Tarin had no idea, but it had definitely been something.

Then Lee had explained the somewhat strained relationship she had with her brother and Tarin had felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He could still picture it in his mind’s eye, multiple times…worse than what had happened a week before. Bad enough that Robert had been convinced that Lee had been being abused.

Clipped footsteps pulled him from his thoughts, and if they hadn’t the very small, very angry woman who burst into his room would have.

“I know…Robert was absolutely right. That rivalry is so intense. It was like those were two completely different teams that played all season.”

He said,doing his best to look completely unbothered while he reclined against his headboard, legs casually crossed.

Boy was Lee pissed. It was a glorious sight. Tarin hoped he’d survive to remember it.

Lee had walked straight into Tarin’s room, only stopping when she’d reached the foot of the bed. The bed that he was sitting on, reclining against the headboard, looking at her with a completely calm, unconcerned expression on his face.

“I know…Robert was absolutely right. That rivalry is so intense. It was like those were two completely different teams that played all season.”

Lee’s eyes widened in shock. How could he think that the hockey game is what she was there about, that a game was the reason he’d burst into his room. “That is not what I’m talking about, and you damn well know that, Tarin Brooks.”

He might not know all the details, ok he didn’t even know close to all of the details, but Tarin knew after their talk in the kitchen that night that Robert was an unnecessarily protective brother who already did not like one Tarin Brooks. And knowing that…

Lee took a deep breath, trying and failing to calm her anger. Dealing with Robert must have used up all of that already. Her fists were clenched at her sides as she glared at Tarin. How could he just sit there like that?

Contrary to Lee’s belief, Tarin did not think that she was talking about Robert. No, Tarin knew exactly why Lee had burst into his room after her brother had left, what was shocking was that she’d actually done it. Tarin had known that Lee was going to be mad, but everything about her posture screamed more than mad.

Lee was livid.

“Then you must be talking about the aliens,” Tarin said, hoping to buy himself enough time for her to calm a bit, “I was shocked they were real actual aliens too, and that the kid was his the whole time. We didn’t have a chance to talk about any of it after the movie because Robert showed up.” And at the time they’d both kind of forgotten they’d been watching a movie at all.

Tarin did sit up though, moving out of his reclined position and sitting his phone down so he could sit on the edge of the bed.

“Because, Emily Smith, there’s absolutely no way on either Earth that you thought you were going to get your brother out of this apartment without him knowing that I’m staying here.”

Maybe his death wish was back. The warning look that Tarin had gotten earlier had instructed him, in no uncertain terms, to never use any part of that name or its derivative again. Hopefully he’d guessed right, or it was just going to be awkward.

“What was I going to do, leave with him and walk back? You somehow think that would have gone better with me there?” He asked, “Previous biases aside, he’s your older brother, and with Rachel as your sister, he’d have known the first time they talked anyway”

Aliens? What was he…as Tarin continued speaking, she realized that he was talking about the movie they had been watching before the game.

Well, the movie she had been watching that he'd fallen asleep during. How in the WORLD could he think that that was what she was talking about?

But Tarin continued speaking, and proved that he did know exactly what she was talking about. And he called her ‘Emily Smith’. ”Do not call me that,” she said through clenched teeth as she took a step closer. “That's not my name. Not anymore.”

He continued speaking, and…why did what he was saying have to make so much sense? Ok, so maybe he couldn't have pretended to leave then come back.

As Tarin continued speaking, little by little the anger she had been feeling disappeared. Yeah…things probably wouldn't have been easier if Tarin had still been out there. And Rachel…

Shit…

The anger largely gone at this point, Lee slowly became very aware of two things: one, Tarin was much, much closer than when she had first burst into his room. Two, he was definitely not wearing a shirt.

A blush suddenly appearing on her face, Lee shrugged slightly. “Maybe?” She said quietly, though at this point not even she wasn’t convinced of that. “But a bit of warning about what you were going to do would have been nice…”

Tarin wouldn’t call her that. Not ever again. Not with that menacing little step Lee had taken towards him and the way she’d spoken through clenched teeth. It was like it had hurt her when he’d called her that and that was the last thing he’d wanted. Mildly irritate, goad a little? Yes, but it clearly went deeper than that. Tarin didn’t retreat though, mostly because there was nowhere to go, but also because there was just something about the way the rage was radiating off of her that he couldn’t look away from.

Maybe he did have a death wish.

To her credit though, Lee had listened when he had spoken and as sarcastic as Tarin had been, he must have made at least a little sense because when she came to a stop a few feet away she didn’t seem nearly as angry.

”That…is a fair point.” Tarin conceded as Lee said it would have been nice to have some warning, “I might have panicked a little when I realized what was about to happen. Today has been…a lot.”

There wasn’t much else to say, “I’m sorry,” he tried, looking across the space between them and noting that Lee was so angry she’d actually flushed a bit, “I won’t call you that again either. I promise.”

Lee could agree that today had been a lot. It had been for her, and the last bit had just been her brother coming to watch the game. For Tarin, it had been meeting Robert; the brother of his roommate, who happened to be the ex of the version of himself from this world…

Yeah, that would be A. Lot.

She nodded, what was left of her anger dissipating even more. But that blush was not going anywhere because he was still not wearing a shirt. And he didn’t seem to realize that fact.

But then he apologized, and Lee gave him a small smile. And tried very hard to keep her eyes on his face. Yes, she’d seen him without a shirt already, but that was a very different situation.

“Thank you, Tarin,” Lee said softly, a drastic change from when she had entered the room a couple minutes earlier. “And I’m sorry for all of that. It’s just it’s been 15 years, and I thought all of that was dealt with and behind me…”

As she spoke, Lee thought she was doing a pretty good job keeping her eyes on Tarin’s face. At least until she thought that his pecs were very well defined.

Yup, that blush was not going anywhere.

Lee accepted his apology with more grace than Tarin probably deserved and he returned her smile with a small one of her own.

“Fifteen years is a long time, and I know that it has to be hard to have all of this brought back up.” he said, waving off the apology.

Lee still looked deeply uncomfortable, and for a moment, Tarin couldn’t figure out why.

Then he did and an almost unbidden, slightly self-conscious smile spread across his features while a blush of his own climbed up Tarin’s neck. That was happening a lot tonight.

“Was there anything else you needed?” he managed to ask, not looking away

Lee nodded. Fifteen years was a long time. “Some of it has been,” Lee admitted with a shrug, though her tone sounded like it was no big deal.

Once she realized that her eyes had drifted downward, Lee quickly pulled them back up to Tarin’s face. Only for her to see a smile on Tarin’s face, and her own turned even darker red.

“Was there anything else you needed?”

“I, uh,” she started, her voice sounding unsure and a little strained as her eyes darted to his chest on their own again. “No… I don’t think so…no.”

So. Here they were again.

It would have been utterly disingenuous at this point to brush off what had happened earlier and what was happening now as anything other than what it was. At least from Tarin’s perspective. You could plan for things, you could avoid things, but there came a point when you were just fooling yourself.

Lee however…Lee still had the deer in the headlights look she’d had earlier that night. But. She also hadn’t left.

So.

Tarin stood up, and Tarin took a slow step towards Lee, then another. Close enough that if he had wanted, he could have reached out and touched her, but he didn’t. “Are you sure?” he said softly.

One word or indication and he would back off because, well, this was absolutely insane

They were still looking at each other, and while her cheeks weren’t feeling as hot anymore, Lee knew the blush was still there.

This was absolutely ridiculous, though. Tarin was here so that she could help him get through the nightmares after the merge. And because he couldn’t continue living in the shop after all of that. He wasn’t here for this…whatever ‘this’ was. And whatever ‘this’ was, he was Tarin from the other side of the rift, it was weird.

Except it didn’t feel weird.

And then Tarin was standing. The unexpected movement forced Lee to look at Tarin’s chest - and abs - again before her eyes were able to follow his face. He was moving closer. God, why was he moving closer?

He was close enough now, Lee realized, that she could have easily reached out and touched him. Looking up into his eyes, Lee felt her heart pounding in her chest.

“Are you sure?”

Lee’s breath caught in her throat hearing the tone of Tarin’s voice as he spoke. She had to be imagining it. It was late, he was tired. This was just weird.

“I should go,” Lee whispered as she continued to stare up into those green eyes above her. Eyes that, this close to her, seemed to have her trapped as she didn’t turn, didn’t move.