”Maybe?” Tarin said when Lee asked if that’s why he had tried to sneak in, ”I was mostly trying to be quiet so I didn’t interrupt.”

Lee played some more and Tarin just watched, relaxing into the couch and letting the day and all the rest go.

Lee asked if he had any suggestions and Tarin just shook his head, ”Nope, you can play whatever you want to play.” he said, still impressed with how Lee was able to make real, actual music come out of the instrument in the first place.

Maybe that was why he had snuck into the apartment. But Tarin wasn't picky about what she played, she could choose whatever she wanted to play.

Glancing over at Tarin as she plucked out some notes, Lee saw him relaxing into the couch and smiled at him before turning back to the guitar.

”Restless tonight
‘Cause I wasted the light
Between both these times
I drew a really thin line “

Lee continued playing and singing until she was almost at the end of the song. She let her words trail off, but continued with playing the guitar at the moment. ”We’re getting a social visit,” she informed Tarin softly.

A couple moments later, Kevin's voice came from beside the couch as he approached.

”Mum, can I give this to Grandma?” Kevin asked, holding something in his hand as he stopped in front of Lee. ”I’ve never seen this picture at her house, and I think she'd like it.”

Only then did Kevin hold the thing out to her. Reaching out, Lee took it and turned it around to reveal her wedding picture.

Letting Lee pick the song she’d played almost always seemed to be the right call. It was another song that Tarin didn’t know off the top of his head, but it sounded good when Lee played it and sang it. As Lee played, Tarin watched, trying to puzzle out how her fingers on the strings were able to produce the chords and how she’d ever figured out how and when to move them.

Tarin was going to ask when Lee finished the song, but then she pointed out that Kevin was on his way out and for a moment Tarin wondered if that meant he was having trouble with his powers again. A moment later Tarin realized that if that was the case Lee wouldn’t have known Kevin was coming and he gave a little wave as the teen approached to offer something to Lee.

It was apparently a picture that Kevin wanted to give to his Grandma in Texas, one that he didn’t think he had seen in her house before.

Tarin had been going to say hi, but he didn’t want to interrupt since Kevin seemed to be on a mission, so he just sat back and watched to see what Lee said.

As Lee looked at the picture, Lee leaned back against the couch. She hadn’t looked at her wedding picture in years; not since she had packed this copy away for Kevin if he wanted it while she had been cleaning out his father’s apartment.

Herself and Kevin’s father standing there in a little chapel in Las Vegas, dressed at once so different from their normal, yet at the same time still so them. His tattoos were all covered by the crisp tuxedo he had rented, but his hair had been freshly dyed and was standing on end perfectly. She had her hair pinned up, and while she was wearing the wedding dress that she and Rachel had picked out, but it was half black and half white.

”If you wanted to give it to her,” Lee said, looking up at Kevin again. ”I packed that away for you, but if you want to give it to grandma that's your choice, Kev.”

Tarin watched as Lee looked at the picture, trying to judge from her face what she was looking at.

It stood to reason that if Kevin was wanting to give the picture to his Grandma it was either a picture of him or his father.

Lee seemed reflective about the whole thing, but told Kevin that it was his picture so it was his choice to give the picture to his Grandma.

Tarin found himself curious, a bit apprehensive but curious as he watched Lee looking at the picture. Everyone who had known the Tarin from here who had then met himself had seemed shocked at how different they apparently looked. It had seemed weird to ever ask more, but now that the opportunity was presenting itself…

”Can I see?” he asked quietly.

Kevin stood there for just a moment in thought after Lee told him that it was his to decide what he wanted to do with it. Lee knew that there were lots of other pictures packed away in boxes for Kevin in addition to the few he had in his room.

”Can I see?”

Lee was just starting to reach out to give the picture back to Kevin when she heard Tarin’s question. ”What do you say, Kevin?”

Kevin didn’t answer Lee, but he took the picture from her and handed it over to Tarin. ”Aunt Rachel says it was a really crappy little place in Vegas, but I think it’s a really good picture.”

Lee deferred to Kevin as to whether or not Tarin could see the picture and after a moment Kevin handed the picture over.

Tarin was weirdly nervous as he took the picture and turned it around so he could see.

He didn’t even notice the other Tarin at first. Kevin had mentioned it was a little place in Vegas and Tarin realized this must be a wedding picture. Lee’s wedding picture with the other Tarin. She looked so beautiful and happy that it made him smile a little bit. Tarin remembered to look at the other occupant of the picture and it became obvious why people were so surprised when they found out that he was the Tarin from the other side of the rift.

They really didn’t look anything alike. Tarin had to think again that the man in the picture probably looked at least a bit like what his other brother James would have looked like as an adult. Which explained why he had always seen a resemblance between Kevin and what Tarin’s brother had looked like as a kid.

Unless Lee had on massive heels, the man in the picture was shorter than Tarin, and he had vibrantly colored had that had been carefully styled to stand almost completely straight up. The man also had brown eyes.

Tarin wasn’t an authority on male looks, but the man in the picture wasn’t necessarily conventionally good looking, but the humor and happiness on his face and the sharp tux went a long way. This Tarin wore his personality like armor instead of trying to keep it under wraps.

”I agree.” Tarin said, holding the picture out for Kevin to take it back, ”It's a really great picture.”

Curiosity sated, Tarin smiled at Lee again, ”Vegas, huh?” he said.

It really wasn’t surprising that Tarin was curious about the picture after basically everyone who had known his counterpart from this world had commented on the fact that they looked nothing alike. And while Lee had always loved that picture, it would not even be on the list of options to show Tarin had she thought to plan this out.

So Lee was quite surprised to see the little smile on Tarin’s face as he looked down at the picture.

Finally, after a minute that felt to Lee to take forever, Tarin was handing the picture back to Kevin. And turning to look at her with a smile as he questioned the location.

Lee shrugged with a small smile of her own. ”It felt right?” she replied. ”And considering I don’t actually remember anything about the chapel itself, that obviously didn’t ruin the day.

“There had been a lot of difficulties while we were engaged,” Lee continued, her eyes drifting to the back of the photo Kevin was once again holding. ”So when I decided that I was ready, I wanted to get married as soon as possible, before anything else could go wrong. So your father suggested we drive up to Vegas.”

”But mum,” said Kevin, and when Lee looked up at her son’s face, she could see that he was confused. ”Las Vegas is on the other side of the country. Driving there wouldn’t be fast.”

Lee nodded ”That true, Kev. But we were at grandma’s, my first trip there, and we decided on Christmas Day, so we probably would have had to wait a couple days anyway. So Vegas made sense.”

As Lee told the story, Tarin couldn’t help but smile and shake his head a little bit.

He didn’t know the exact time frame, but from what Tarin knew about Lee’s past, it wasn’t surprising to hear that a lot of things had happened around the time that she had gotten married.

It also sounded so much like Lee to decide that she wanted to be married and do everything possible to make it happen as soon as possible. As far as Tarin had seen, when Lee decided something needed done…it was done. ”That does make sense.” he said.

Kevin asked a valid question about locations and logistics and Lee answered just as reasonably. She’d apparently been to Texas a few times and it was on that first trip that they’d decided to get married.

”Was Christmas a whole huge thing?” Tarin asked, curiosity getting the better of him again as they talked. He could remember Christmases when he was a kid being a big deal. With all the other similarities it would have made sense for the same to be true here.

Lee had answered Kevin's question, but he still looked a little confused. So Lee waited patiently to see if this, whatever the confusion was, would be figured out on his own or if there would be more questions.

Long enough for Tarin to state that getting married in Vegas made sense.

”If you drove from grandma's, that explains how Uncle Josh was there, but how did Aunt Rachel get there?”

Lee laughed slightly. ”Yes, we borrowed Uncle Josh's car, and he took turns with your dad driving. And I called Aunt Rachel and she was able to get a flight in to meet us.”

Tarin hadn’t really left New York City since he’d ran to be there so many years before. There hadn’t been any reason to and for a large majority of the time he wouldn’t have had the means or the capability to do so.

Still. He knew that the drive from where his family had lived in Texas to Las Vegas was absolutely no joke. Apparently the other Tarin and his brother, the one who was coming to get Kevin on Friday, had taken turns to get them to Vegas for the wedding.

Rachel had even flown out. Again, Tarin thought about how happy the two people in that picture had looked and an odd sense of melancholy washed through him. Still, he smiled and listened as Lee and Kevin chatted about the spur of the moment elopement that had seen his parents married.

”It’s a much better story than a lot of wedding stories.” Tarin said, ”So many are so generic.”

Had Christmas that year been a big deal? Had it been? It sure had seemed so at the time. ”It had definitely been a big deal compared to what either of us had had in the decade or so before that,” Lee told Tarin. ”And the ‘snack’ we were given when we first got there seemed more like a three course meal than an actual snack.

“Not that your father ate much of it,” Lee continued, glancing over at Kevin. ”I think he was too nervous to even notice the food.” Lee turned back to look at Tarin now. ”So yes? Though that year was nothing compared to when we first took Kevin down for Christmas.”

But then Tarin was commenting on how this was a much better wedding story than most, and she shook her head.

”Well, considering I'm apparently so extraordinary,” Lee said, turning a one sided smile toward Tarin. ”How could anything I decide to do be generic?”

But before things decided to get more awkward than simply talking about her wedding to Kevin's father with Tarin sitting right beside her, even though he had asked, Lee thought it might be best to end it there and then.

”Since you're giving that one to grandma, why don't you go look through the box and see if there's any others you think she'd like?”

”Great idea! Thanks mum,” Kevin said before rushing back to his room.

Once she heard the door to his room close, Lee turned to look at Tarin. ”I hope that wasn't too uncomfortable,” she said softly, a small crease between her brows.

God, it was all so eerily similar, Tarin thought, goosebumps rising on his arms as Lee talked about the way his- the other Tarin’s Mom had fed them when they’d first arrived. His mother had always done that when company had arrived. The three boys had hovered like vultures to snag whatever they could before they’d been shoo’d out of the kitchen with explicit orders to not return until the streetlights were on.

Christmas had also been a huge deal. Tarin could still remember the last Christmas he’d spent at home, how hard his Mom had tried to make everything good.

Then Lee was talking about, and at least somewhat admitting to the fact that she was extraordinary and he couldn’t help but return that little lopsided grin she shot in his direction. What was the point in dwelling on things in the past.

”We’ll mark this down as the first time you willingly admitted the fact.” he said, much more lightly than he felt.

Lee suggested that Kevin go and look for more pictures, and off he went to do exactly that.

Lee turned back to him and Tarin shrugged a bit as she said she hoped that everything hadn’t been too uncomfortable, ” It’s definitely kind of weird.” he said, ”I think that my Mom and your Tarin’s Mom are really similar…”

Tarin took a breath there, ”And it’s not like you can not talk about this kind of stuff. It’s just another thing to add to the list.”

That wasn't what she meant. She hadn't said…

Lee sighed and stuck her tongue out at Tarin over his comment about agreeing that she was extraordinary.

It was certainly weird, Lee thought. And if she was thinking that it was weird, it had to be so much more so for Tarin.

But he continued speaking, and Lee's body unconsciously tensed when he said ‘her Tarin’. Though it did sound like there were a lot of similarities between the two Adele Brookses. More than just Tarin's eyes looking like hers.

If that was the case there was probably quite a bit that she could tell Tarin. But she stopped herself just before she opened her mouth; just because the two women seemed very similar did not mean Tarin wasn't to hear it. And something that Lee thought would be confusing could actually have the opposite effect.

”I know I can't really avoid it,” Lee said with a slight frown. ” But of I had really thought about it, I could have already shown you a picture of him that wasn't my wedding photo and avoided a lot of this…”

It didn’t matter that Lee had stuck her tongue out at him, she had as good as admitted the fact that she was extraordinary and there was no way that he was going to let her take it back now.

Lee was frowning now though and saying she should have shown him a picture sooner that wasn’t her wedding picture and Tarin frowned back a bit. ”If it made you uncomfortable, then sure, I guess so…” he said, ”Or is it supposed to upset me that it was your wedding picture?”

Honestly, this conversation was way more uncomfortable than the seeing the picture had been, ”You were happy, and beautiful. That’s a good thing…and God knows you deserved some happy in there.” Especially if the timing of the whole thing was when Tarin thought it was.

”I do get why everyone acts so weird when they meet me though.” he said, ”And I do think he looks like my brother James would have looked when he grew up, though I can’t be sure.”