Lee was saying it was okay, that anyone would have panicked that way, but they wouldn’t have. She knew they wouldn’t have.

But he was okay. He was out.

Realizing what he was doing and how it did not scream I’m okay he took a deep breath and pulled back, loosening his arms from around Lee.

Looking around and up and at all of the building that was now inside of the building, Tarin shook his head, then reached up and pulled off the hard hat.

”Can we go home?”

As Lee felt Tarin starting to pull away from her, she loosened her arms around him. And just looked at Tarin as he glanced around the destroyed building.

”Can we go home?”

Lee nodded, climbing to her feet before holding her hand out to help Tarin up. ”Of course we can. Which is good, because you really need a shower. And I want to make sure I didn't miss you being hurt anywhere.”

At that point, Lee felt someone approaching and turned to see Robert walking up. ”Em, they've got paramedics outside that can check him. You both should probably be checked out before you leave.”

Lee stood and offered him her hand and Tarin took it. It was almost funny how easily Lee was able to pull him up, but Tarin wasn’t really in a laughing mood. He also hurt like hell.

A shower sounded incredible though, so Tarin made a half assed effort to dust himself off as Lee turned and Robert approached.

”No paramedics.” Tarin said, ”I’m fine.”

Robert just stared, ”A building just fell on you.” he said.

Tarin shook his head, ”Part of the building fell around me.” he said, ”No paramedics.”

Lee was a little surprised, and looked at him quickly, at just how adamantly Tarin told her brother no about the paramedics checking him. She'd expect that kind of reaction to the suggestion of going to a hospital, but not simply being checked for injuries.

Turning back to Robert, Lee adjusted her hand to hold Tarin's more comfortably. ”He’s not bleeding and nothing’s broken,” she stated. ”I’ve already checked. So if he says he's fine, he'll be fine. And nothing actually happened to me, so I don't know why you think I need to be checked.”

”Because it's better to be safe than sorry,” Robert replied. ”They’re already here and you'll need to pass them to leave anyway, so you may as well get checked.”

Lee had started to turn to make their way out of the building, but stopped and looked up at her brother. ”No Robert,” Lee said, her voice firm. ”If on the slight chance I missed something, we'll go to the healer at the mansion. A hospital visit is definitely not happening after today, and Tarin had already said no about the paramedics.”

Tarin let Lee talk to Robert, at least she was being sensible about the whole thing. The last thing Tarin wanted was being poked and prodded and all of his personal details getting taken down.

They’d have to pass the paramedics to leave? That was going to complicate things, but people were allowed to refuse treatment. Squeezing Lee’s hand in thanks as she told Robert no again.

At least this time Lee’s brother was trying to make sure they were okay rather than being an ass.

Lee mentioned a hospital visit and Tarin shook his head. Absolutely not. The healer at the Mansion was even an uncomfortable thought, but if Lee said it was okay…

”I just need a long shower and a bag of frozen peas or two.” Tarin said with a sigh.

That was a lie, but nothing at a hospital or in an
ambulance was going to help and he wasn’t about to talk about it now.

”Who said anything about the hospital?” Robert asked. ”But why would that be so horrible?”

Lee rolled her eyes and shook her head as she stepped past Robert. ”Maybe step out of your comfort zone and think about why a mutant wouldn't want to go to the hospital. Especially one who can see spirits.”

Lee wasn't waiting for an answer, or even to see if Robert understood what she was saying. She just continued walking, Tarin's hand still in hers, as she made her way out of what was left of the building.

Once they were away from Robert, from people, Lee looked up at Tarin. ”Are you ok?” she asked, her voice quiet.

Lee was intuitive enough to understand why a hospital was out of the question today. Tarin nodded and glanced at Robert as Lee pulled them from the room. If nothing else, Lee’s brother was thinking about what Lee had said.

As they walked out of the building and away from the paramedics and the volunteers and the cops and everybody else that was at the scene, Tarin felt a little bit bad that they weren’t helping more but he needed to get out of there.

Tarin could feel Lee looking up at him and when she asked if he was okay he shook his head very slowly but he couldn’t look at her.

”But I don’t need any medical attention”

Tarin wasn’t looking at her when she asked if he was ok. He shook his head, but wasn’t looking at her.

”Ok, Tarin,” she said softly, squeezing his hand as she looked for the fastest way out of there while passing the fewest people. ”Lets get home.”

It took longer than I’m sure Tarin would have liked, and repeatedly telling multiple people that they were fine, didn’t need any help. But they finally got away and out onto the street.

The walk home was quiet. Not that that was very surprising to Lee, but she kept glancing up at Tarin, giving his hand an occasional squeeze.

When they finally made it to their building, Lee silently walked with Tarin toward the stairwell, walking with him up to their floor. Down the hallway and to their door they went. And by the time that they stopped in front of their door, Tarin had still not reached for his keys. It had become so normal for Tarin to always get the door that Lee hadn’t even thought about taking her own keys out until after they had stopped walking and were standing there.

This was not good, she thought as she moved forward to open the door. Once they were inside and Lee had locked the door behind them, she stepped right in front of Tarin, placing her hands on either side of his face as she looked up at him. ”I love you, Tarin,” she said, trying to look him in the eyes whether he wanted to or not at the moment. ”Like I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

The further they got from the construction site, the more the adrenaline and the thrill of being alive started to wear off and the more Tarin started to think about what had happened.

All his life he’d had the potential for the kind of disaster and destruction that gave Lee the haunted look in her eyes every time she talked about one of those merges. The same thing that had caused her to look at him with all of that fear when she’d pulled the rubble away and he’d realized what was happening.

What was he going to do the next time it happened? When would it happen again? Was it only going to happen when he was in tight places? Would it happen if he got too angry? Too happy? Too sad?

Tarin was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t even realize that they had gone up the stairs and were home until Lee was opening the door.

Once they were inside and the door was shut, Tarin had planned to head straight to his room…he needed to think. He needed to figure things out. Maybe after a shower he’d be able to look at Lee.

But Lee had other plans, her hands were on either side of his face. Tarin didn’t want to look at Lee but she said she loved him and he couldn’t help his eyes from moving to hers.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Tarin raised his hands to grab Lee’s and pull them down.

”You don’t have to do this…” he said.

”You were so afraid of me…” the words weren’t accusatory, weren’t mean, if anything they were just sad and full of self-realization

He couldn’t leave Lee’s words hanging, ”I love you too…” he whispered.

Lee could tell that Tarin wasn’t wanting to look at her. Even with her hands on his face, he was avoiding her eyes. Until she’d said she loved him.

Lee hung on to Tarin’s hands when he pulled hers down from his face, but she continued to look up at him. ”I don’t have to do what?” Lee asked, her voice still quiet. ”Love you? Because we’re well past that point. Stay? You’re kinda stuck with me, Tarin. Because I don’t want to go anywhere.”

But then he continued. Lee shook her head slightly as she squeezed his hands. ”Of you? No. I was scared about what could have happened, Tarin. But I wasn’t scared of you.”

”I love you too…”

Lee smiled up at him. ”Better that time,” Lee said, her tone turning slightly playful and teasing. ”But we have lots of time to practice that.”

Tarin wanted to explain everything that was going on in his head to Lee, but she said several of the things for him. She hadn’t let go of his hands, so Tarin couldn’t move past without pulling free of her grip and he wasn’t going to d that so he just stood there in the entry of the apartment and listened.

Well past it? She wanted to stay? She wasn’t hesitating now.

The next part though, the next part was where everything tried to screech to a halt, both in his head and the tight place in his chest.

Lee was smiling at him, trying to play and tease and part of Tarin just wanted to play along, to keep her smiling and happy because he always wanted her happy. He just didn’t have it in him though, the day had been too much and everything was too raw for him to pretend he was okay, not with Lee.

”But what could have happened is me…” he said, ”I thought maybe I was different…what if everyone has been right? What if I’m just another disaster waiting to happen…”

Lee had hoped that they would be able to start being playful and teasing soon. That was always a good sign. And nothing had actually happened.

Well, the building had collapsed, but that had nothing to do with this. This was all because as far as they could tell without it actually happening, Tarin had been on the verge of having a merge.

The smile disappeared as Tarin spoke, but Lee didn’t look away, she didn’t move away. She continued holding his hands. ”I don’t think you’re a disaster waiting to happen, Tarin,” Lee said, all of the previous playfulness gone, her tone now completely sincere. ”And I’m not scared now.”

“This was the first time it almost happened. But it didn’t happen. And it took a building literally collapsing on top of you for it to almost happen. With everything else that’s been done to you and this hasn’t happened before, I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue, just like with the spirits.”

”It wasn’t just today…” Tarin said, his voice so quiet he wondered if he was actually speaking out loud.

It would have been so easy to just let Lee believe that this was the first time he’d felt like that. But he couldn’t hold that information back from her, not when he knew now…

”I think it happened every time…” he said, eyes closing when he said it so he couldn’t see her face, ”I just didn’t know…didn’t realize. Nobody ever touched me…and I thought I was just going somewhere safe in my head…”

It was so hard to explain. ”What if it’s not just small spaces?”.

Tarin knew he was spiraling again, knew that he was being completely self-centered and rambling like a bit of a lunatic, but that’s kind of what he was, wasn’t it? Still, standing there, absolutely covered in dirt and filth, he just knew he needed to say it all, make sure Lee understood just how much of a mess he was.

”It wasn’t just today…”

Those words repeated in Lee’s head as she looked up at Tarin. As he continued speaking, telling her that he thought it had happened every time.

Lee didn’t need to ask, she knew what Tarin meant by ‘every time’. Every time that those people had tortured Tarin when he was young and called it ‘exposure training’.

And as horrible as all of it was, the fact that a merge could have happened each and every one of those times actually made a lot more sense than it did for this to have been the first time.

”And if it’s not, we will deal with that when we need to,” Lee told him gently. ”Just like we will with this. But nothing that has happened today has changed how I feel about you, Tarin. The only thing different is I don’t have to worry about scaring you by saying I love you anymore.”

”You’re really just going to take all of this in stride?” Tarin said. Lee had hardly blinked when he’d explained it all, when he’d told her that it wasn’t just a one off caused by an incredibly rare circumstance.

That it could have happened any time…God, it could have happened in that elevator in the Empire State Building.

Lee could take it all in stride, but Tarin couldn’t. There had to be a way to make sure that this stopped happening…even in extreme circumstances. He had to be safe.

Still, all Lee had said was that the only thing that had changed…

Was…

”You…were afraid to scare me?’ he said slowly, ”You mean…you…?”