Lee returned and apologized and Tarin waved off the apology. ”You’re fine.” he said.

She reiterated that she trusted him, and Tarin appreciated the sentiment, but he was a little in his head about the whole thing now.

”I believe you…” he said, ”But should you?”he asked, frowning slightly at the TV.

”I really don’t like that I didn’t even consider that it could be dangerous.”

Lee gave Tarin a small smile as she looked at him, even though he was looking toward the TV. ”You have given me absolutely no reason to not trust you, Tarin,” Lee said softly. ”And everything can be dangerous. My powers can be dangerous, and that’s before even taking into account the speed and strength.”

Lee took a deep breath as she thought, both what had happened in the past and what Tarin had now offered. ”I mean,” she continued in a whisper, her eyes slowly dropping and a crease forming between her brows the longer she spoke. ”I don’t know exactly what he told the spirits to do, or exactly how much control he had. And it’s not like we had a lot of choices, those were times where we very easily could have died. And I know I wanted guards in the camp dead, and I managed to get out…So it could have been who the spirits were and where we were, too…”

No reason not to trust him? That was generous considering how she had found him.

Still staring at the TV instead of looking at Lee, Tarin listened to what she said and continued to frown. It was easier to talk to her about this if he didn’t have to see how she reacted.

Lee didn’t know how much control the other Tarin had had?

”I think I have a lot of control. They kind of just do what I say. ” he said, fiddling with his hands in his lap as he talked. Why was this so uncomfortable?

”It’s not about what they want until I get what I want and if they don’t follow the rules they don’t get anything.”

Tarin shrugged,”It’s hard to explain.”

Lee’s eyes had dropped to her lap, so Lee didn’t see that Tarin was simply staring at the TV as he spoke, not even glancing at her. But Lee listened, the crease deepening as she took the information in. Took the information in, turned it around, and compared it to what she knew from experience.

Yes, both Tarin Brooks’ had very similar powers, but they weren’t identical powers. They couldn’t be. There was no way because with everything Tarin had told her about his ‘training’, she could not understand how he could have possibly have gotten through all of that, as a teenager no less, and not have merged with someone even once. To have never even felt the sensation, as horribly as she had likely described it.

And until she had voiced her worries based on what she had seen (or just heard) in much worse situations than the one they were going to be in, Tarin had been completely confident in his idea.

Finally, Lee looked back up at Tarin. ”How long were you on that island?” she ended up asking.

”How long were you on that island?”

Tarin could tell that Lee was looking at him, but he didn’t turn his head. ”Off and on for probably three or four months…” he said. It all seemed kind of fuzzy and non distinct now. ”The longest I stayed in a single stretch was probably a few weeks. There weren’t a lot of amenities…”

Fuzzy and distinct wasn’t even a good descriptor. It seemed like another life.

He’d thought things were so bad, he’d been so scared.

”I was…not very okay after a while.”

Lee’s eyes widened when Tarin told her that he had spent three to four months on the island. With the longest stretch being a few weeks. Off and on. Meaning he’d left the island and gone back multiple times.

”That’s…” Lee breathed as she continued just looking at Tarin. That was that alright.

”If you could control things out there,” Lee finally said, her voice still quiet though louder than the previous word. ”I fully trust you if you say that it would work for a spirit to help me show Kevin those moves.”

Lee looked at Tarin for another couple moments in silence now before reaching out to gently grab his hand, holding it in both of hers. ”I can’t even imagine everything you saw out there,” she whispered. ”But I’m here if you need to talk about it. Or anything else.”

It had been a long time since Tarin had thought about his time on Hart Island. It wasn’t all that weird that the topic had come up now, but thinking about it settled something cold in the pit of Tarin’s stomach.

That…was yeah.

Lee spoke again and Tarin did turn his head to look at her. Not just a fleeting glance, to really look at her.

”I’d want to try it out first.” he said slowly.

Lee grabbed his hand and for a second, Tarin wanted to pull it away. He wanted to get up and walk around or just go somewhere else…

He didn’t though.

As for what she had said…he looked away again.

”It was just…bleak. I didn’t…connect with very many…people. It was hard when I slept though. Lots of dreams.”

Tarin finally looked at her and Lee looked back. Even before seeing the look in his eyes, she knew that this conversation had gotten difficult for him, but actually seeing his eyes, Lee could see that it was harder than she had thought.

”I’d want to try it out first.”

Lee nodded. That was reasonable. Understandable. The reason she had said she wanted to do it without Kevin there at first.

Then when she grabbed his hand, it felt like a rock sunk heavily in her stomach. He had made almost zero reaction when she touched him, and Lee was sure that no one else would have noticed the slightest tensing of muscles without moving, the tiniest change in the expression of his eyes. She never would have if she hadn’t spent six months avoiding all contact and then still months after that flinching away a lot of the time even before the contact was made because she could sense it through her siphoning.

Lee didn’t pull her hands away, but she did loosen her grip on his hands so it would be easier if he wanted to. ”Not many is still more than I wish that you had to deal with,” she whispered.

Lee’s grip loosed on his hand and despite the fact that he had wanted to pull away just a few moments before, Tarin held hers tighter.

”The worst part was the fact that most of the people were unclaimed, and a lot of them didn’t know why nobody had cared enough to even come for them” He said, then sighed deeply.

The silence was heavy and the mood in the room was heavier. How had that happened so fast? God, he was doing it again, getting lost in his own drama over things that couldn’t light a candle to what Lee had been through.

”Sorry.” Tarin said ”Everything okay on the phone? he said to try to change the subject, but not really expecting an answer.

Feeling Tarin’s hand tighten on hers, Lee let her own hands hold his tighter once again as she gave him a slight smile.

Which disappeared as Tarin continued explaining about his time on that island and what it had been like with all those spirits. She couldn’t even sense them, but with what she knew, she didn’t think she’d even want to go out there herself.

But then Tarin was apologizing, and Lee shook her head. ”No,” she said gently. ”I asked. I told you that you could talk to me about it. And even if I hadn’t, Tarin, you can still talk to me about stuff like this. I might not be happy about some of the things I hear, but that’s the same as I’m guessing you didn’t like some of the things I’ve told you. I don’t have to like everything you’ve been through, but I still want you to talk to me about it.”

And the phone call. Lee had thought enough time had passed since the call, that the conversation had taken enough unpleasant turns, that Tarin wouldn’t ask about it. Apparently not.

”Oh yeah, everything is perfectly fine,” Lee told him. And it was. It was who had been on the other end of the phone that Lee thought would make things more awkward had she talked in the living room. ”Me and Kevin have both done a bad job keeping in touch recently, so she was just calling to check in, that’s all.”

Lee had asked, but there hadn’t been any reason for Tarin to go to pieces like he had.

She said she might not like what she heard, but she still wanted to hear about it all.

Lee was right, he hadn’t liked alot of what she had told him. Lee had been through so much.

”I just…” he said, struggling to find the right words, ”I’ll try.” he settled on since there wasn’t much else to say.

Lee pointed out that the phone call had been fine and that she and Kevin had simply been doing a poor job keeping in touch.

Tarin noticed that Lee hadn’t said who had called and he ran through the list of people who it could have been in his head before looking back to the TV. It wasn’t really his business. The Mets were holding the lead.

”I just…I’ll try.”

Lee nodded, giving Tarin a slight smile. In a situation like this, especially since Tarin had spent so much of his life on his own trying not to have connections with people, Lee knew it would be hard.

Just like it had been, and still was, to accept his help dealing with things, and more so asking for help.

But Tarin didn't press her about who had called, and Lee couldn't help but feel slightly relieved.

And it appeared that Tarin's attention had turned back to the game. Since Lee really didn't want to talk about the call with Tarin, and it didn't feel right to push more about the island, Lee got comfortable on the couch as she snuggled into Tarin's side to watch with him.

As the inning ended, Lee felt Kevin leaving his room and coming closer. ”Oh, there's a game on?” he said, veering off from his path to the kitchen towards the couch.

”There is,” Lee confirmed, glancing over at her son. ” Make sure you call your grandmother tonight, ok?”

Now that the conversation had waned a bit and Lee had snuggled up into his side, Tarin felt much better.

The game was going well, but Tarin was distracted trying to figure out how Lee was able to share about the things that had happened to her so easily. Any time he asked her about something, she just explained. It had been hard for her sometimes, she had even cried sometimes, but she’d still been able to do it. She had done it.

Maybe it was just a matter of doing it? Being okay, or at least accepting, of the fact that it was going to be uncomfortable.

Kevin spoke and Tarin might have jumped a little at his voice. ”They just went up by 2 in the last inning.” he said as Kevin sat and Lee told him to call his Grandmother.

”Which one?” Kevin said, flopping down.

Lee felt Tarin jump beside her as Kevin spoke. Maybe she should let him know when Kevin was coming out of his room since she had known before Kevin had even opened his door.

But that was something that they could discuss later because Kevin was sitting down beside her to watch the baseball game.

And asking which grandmother he was supposed to be calling. Well, that hadn’t worked out as well as she had hoped.

”If you’re needing to ask, you probably should be calling both,” Lee pointed out gently. ”I mentioned about the mansion, and your grandmother was wondering if you still wanted to go to Texas this summer.”

The call had been from Kevin’s Grandmother and Tarin did actually smile a little bit as Lee pointed out that if he had to ask he’d probably done a poor job of communicating to both.

Tarin wasn’t sure, but Kevin may have rolled his eyes.

Lee pointed out that his grandma wanted to know if Kevin wanted to go to Texas.

Oh, so it was that Grandma. It was awkward and uncomfortable to think that there was a woman currently living in Texas who had a son who was…well…him on this side of the rift. A son who nobody had heard from in six years.

It made sense why Lee had left the room. Tarin could only imagine what it would be like for them to know that he was there and their family was gone.

It was honestly just another level of weird on this whole thing.

The Nationals were at bat now and had two on with only a single out.

Low fly to the left-field corner and the were off. Tarin did not swear but he did let out a sound of disgust and reach up to flip his ballcap around. It was 2-2 now.

”Pitcher is spent. Need to call the bullpen.”

That done, Tarin looked across the couch at Kevin, ”You like Texas?” he asked, curious.