This…had not been his brightest idea, Tarin thought as he paid the cab fair and got out of the vehicle outside of the apartment building he called home. The day had gone pretty much as he had planned, but he’d never really thought through what he was going to say or do when he got home and Lee was there.

Realistically, Tarin hadn't thought that starting this whole thing was going to be so hard. Yes, simply riding in the elevator had been difficult since the building collapse, but Tarin hadn’t realized just how far he’d regressed and what kind of a mess he’d end up being this afternoon in the Danger Room. Two minutes. Two measly minutes was all Tarin had been able to manage in the whole time he’d worked with Shin today and all it had really gotten Tarin was little fingernail shaped cuts on his palms and the feeling that he needed to take an hour long shower.

The problem was that there was one monumental obstacle between him and that shower.

Lee. And the fact that Tarin hadn’t told her a thing about this plan. Tarin hadn’t told Lee that he was reaching out to Shin to see if Shin would help. Tarin hadn’t told Lee that Shin had accepted and they’d set a date to start. Tarin hadn’t told Lee that he was going over there this afternoon when a cancellation earlier in the week had left his Friday afternoon open.

What was he going to tell her now?

Tarin knew that he wasn’t going to be able to look Lee in the face and lie to her about where he’d been. It was wrong on so many levels, and trust was such an important thing between the two of them that he’d never be able to do it. Maybe he could pull it together long enough to get to that shower, and from there it wouldn’t be too difficult to just let a calm and relaxing night follow. Tarin knew he needed that, his hands were still a little shaky and walking through the lobby almost felt like too much effort.

Walking up the stairs was almost too much effort, but Tarin knew that he wouldn’t have been able to manage the elevator today…not with any hope of holding it together when he got inside the apartment.

Still not sure what he was going to say, or what he was going to do as he opened the door, Tarin entered the apartment.

”Hey.” he called, dropping his backpack off in its proper spot in the entry way, ”Rough day…I think I’m gonna hit the shower.” he said, pleased to have told nothing but the truth as he started to make his way in that direction.

It had certainly been a tough day for Lee. It had taken a while, but she had finally managed to track down Dr Rossi, the woman Lee had needed (been forced) to talk to after she had had the breakdown after the fight at the pharmaceutical company after that dream so many years ago. Lee had tracked her down and scheduled an appointment to try and see if she was still a safe option. If she could still be counted on for more confidentiality than doctor patient privilege, as she had been at the Labs.

That appointment had been that afternoon, and the woman had been asking Lee plenty of her own questions, which quickly dug far deeper than Lee had ever thought that day would go.

Especially since she had sought out Dr Rossi for Tarin. He had asked who someone like them, with their powers and all the inherent issues that came along with them, could possibly talk to professionally to get help. That felt like it had been ages ago, but really was only a few months earlier.

Lee knew that Tarin wouldn't want to talk with Dr Rossi, but she didn't know what else to do. Since the building collapse, Tarin's claustrophobia seemed to just be getting worse. And while Lee was fairly sure she could continue talking Tarin through his panic attacks so he didn't end up in a position where a merge was possible, she also knew that she couldn't always be with him

By the time Tarin got home, Lee was curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee, staring at the TV but not actually watching it as she tried, again, to figure out what to say to Tarin.

Setting her mug down on the table, Lee got up to move over to Tarin (she could use a hug after the afternoon she'd had just as much as she needed the right words to magically come out of her mouth), but frowned when she heard his words as he was immediately heading to the bathroom. Even after going for a run by himself, Tarin always greeted her better than that before going to shower.

”What happened?” Lee asked, feeling a little anxious. ” Is everything ok?”

Clocked immediately.

Almost as soon as Tarin had entered the apartment, Lee must have gotten up from where she was in the living room because by the time he hit the front of the hall she was approaching. She was also asking what had happened and if everything was okay.

It was one of those moment of truth moments and Tarin stopped for a long couple of seconds, facing away from Lee while he tried to figure out what to do next before he slowly turned to face her. Taking a deep breath and trying to summon an easy smile, Tarin shrugged, ”Things this afternoon were just a lot more demanding than I thought they’d be.” That was still the truth, right? Tarin had just been thinking that when the cab had dropped him off in front of the building.

”I’m in kind of a garbage mood and I thought if I drowned myself for a while I’d be better company.” Now that was entirely true with no omissions.

”No excuse to not say hello though.” he said apologetically, ”Sorry about that.”

It felt like it took forever for Tarin to turn towards her when Lee asked if everything was alright, and her anxiety was starting to crap into full on worrying when Tarin finally said the afternoon had just been more demanding than he'd expected.

Lee nodded slightly, slowly. Not that he had really explained what had happened. But it was a reason why he'd been heading towards the bathroom without really greeting her.

”Ok,” Lee said slowly as she closed the distance between them. Lee certainly would have preferred to get more of an explanation, but she had no reason to think that it was anything other than a demanding day at the shop.

”I was about to order dinner. Did you want Chinese again or…”

Lee's words trailed off as she put a hand on Tarin's shoulder as she started stretching up for a kiss. Feeling the fabric against her hand, Lee dropped back down flat on her feet, the kiss forgotten for the moment.

”What happened today?” Lee repeated, looking up at Tarin. The shirt was dry now, but the only time he ever sweat enough to make the fabric feel like this was at the end of an intense run.

Lee was closing the distance between them now and Tarin was stuck in a kind of panicked stasis. There was no way Lee could get close to him and fail to figure out that there was more to the story. There was also no way that Tarin could move away without the exact same thing happening.

There was nothing for Tarin to do but stand there and wait as Lee approached and reached out her hand to put it on his shoulder as she asked about food. God, he’d almost forgotten that he hadn’t eaten since lunch.

It only took a moment and Tarin didn’t miss the fact that Lee stopped herself mid-stretch, probably to give him a kiss. She didn’t though. Instead, Lee just stood there looking up at Tarin and asked him what had happened. It was the kind of direct question that Tarin had been dreading the entire way home and now faced with it, he didn’t know what to do.

”It’s really fine.” Tarin said, still trying to act as casual as possible, ”I was just trying something out and it didn’t go as well as I hoped it would go. I’m fine though, it’s all fine and you don’t need to worry about it.” .

Yeah. That had a snowball’s chance in hell of convincing Lee.

Tarin was saying a lot to try and convince Lee that everything was fine and whatever it was he had done that day was nothing to worry about. All while not actually telling her anything about what it was that had happened. It all sounded very much like when she was trying to get Kevin off of a topic without actually telling him what that topic was.

And other than possibly the ‘you don’t need to worry’, he wasn’t lying to her, but that was only because he wasn’t actually telling her anything.

Plus, Tarin seemed to be stressing the word ‘fine’, which he had a tendency of saying when he was trying to tell her that his issues with the claustrophobia were ‘fine’. Including when they were in an elevator and she could see the near panic in his eyes.

Lee just raised an eyebrow at Tarin as she looked up at him. ”If it’s so much nothing to worry about, then why won’t you tell me what it is, Tarin?”

There Lee went with the direct questions again. As he stood there doing his best to avoid looking at her, Tarin couldn’t help but think that it had been really dumb of him to think that he’d be able to do this without even bringing it up to Lee. Hell, it had probably been dumb of him to not tell her about his whole plan in the first place, but she wouldn’t have liked it and would have probably tried to talk him out of it.

That line of thinking highlighted the other huge issue at hand. The last time they’d argued, right after everything with the collapse had happened, Tarin had told Lee that he would stop just assuming he knew how she thought or felt about something and Tarin had done exactly that…again.

”Because…” he said, ”I already told you that everything is fine.” And in reality, everything was fine. Mostly.

Well, Tarin knew he wasn’t exactly fine. No, he was exhausted where he stood and his nerves were frayed to a point where he was already getting aggravated even though Lee was just concerned.

In the grand scheme of things though, nothing bad had really happened and the next time would go better. He just really didn’t want to get into it, ” I hadn’t planned on you having to deal with any of it in the first place, and it’s going to be a whole thing if we get into it.” he said, ”So can we just not?”

Lee’s other eyebrow rose to join the first as Tarin stated that he hadn’t planned on her having to deal with this.

”Except that if you're dealing with it, I am dealing with it, Tarin,” Lee reminded him.

Lee took a deep breath and shook her head slightly. ”I know you’ve spent basically your whole life thinking that you have to deal with everything yourself,” Lee continued. ”But that’s just it, you don’t have to. I want to help you with things, but I can’t if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Lee desperately wanted to know what was going on. But she also knew that while he was getting better about it, Tarin tended to leave when conversations got hard. He did normally talk to her about it after, though.

Another deep breath, and Lee spoke again. ”Go shower. I’ll order food. But we do have to talk after dinner.”

That was the part that Lee didn’t get. Just because he was dealing with something didn’t mean that she automatically had to deal with it too. Tarin absolutely hated that Lee just automatically took on his issues like they were something they could tackle together.

Sure it sounded nice and fluffy, but it just wasn’t always possible.

And yes, Lee wanted to help, but she also wasn’t going to be around all the time. There was also the fact that maybe Tarin just didn’t want Lee there to see him like that, to witness just what a mess he was. Maybe there was a limit to just how much he could handle her knowing.

Lee offered a bit of a reprieve and Tarin took it, shrugging as he made his way to his room to grab some clothes and then to the bathroom to take the shower that had only partially been an excuse to get out of the room.

The shower should have been cathartic, but after everything he’d done that day, the space just felt tight and Tarin ended up ready to head back out to the living room way sooner than he planned.

Dumping his clothes back in his room Tarin debated just shutting the door and seeing how long it took before Lee barged in. He didn’t do that, but Tarin did drop down to sit on the edge of his bed, just to think for a moment. The last thing Tarin wanted was Lee mad at him when the whole point of this was to keep her from having to deal with his drama. Dropping his head into his hands Tarin just sighed. What a mess.

Tarin simply shrugged and turned toward his room and the bathroom. Lee stood there just watching him walk away, a frown on her face, until he turned into his bedroom.

This is not what their relationship was like. Even after the collapse at the building site, when she had actually forced a conversation that Tarin had tried walking away from, the situation hadn’t been like this between them.

Making her way back to the couch, Lee ordered dinner, then curled up with her arms wrapped around her legs. No, the only thing that she could compare this to was how Tarin had been acting immediately after the merge, when he had been trying to get rid of her.

But that didn’t make sense, everything that morning had been good. Normal.

This evening was anything but.

As she sat there, Lee could hear Tarin make his way into the bathroom, door closing, then a while later him making his way back to his room. If things were actually fine, Tarin would be making his way out to the living room again any moment.

But he didn’t. The minutes continued to tick past, and Lee didn’t feel Tarin’s energy moving.

Just as she was starting to wonder if she should go check on him, Lee heard the knock at the door. Getting up, she went to go get the delivery. Hopefully food would make things better.

Tarin knew he was doing the thing where he just sat in decision paralysis for longer and longer. It had happened the night that Kevin’s Uncle had shown up at the apartment and found out exactly who Lee’s roommate was. Lee had shown up at the shop with his phone though and made everything better.

That was the problem though, wasn’t it? Over the past few months Tarin had come to rely on Lee to make things easier…more manageable. The second she hadn’t been there, in the rubble of the building he’d completely fallen to pieces and she’d had to spend the time since patching everything together.

It just wasn’t fair when all Lee wanted was normal.

Even from his room Tarin heard the knock on the front door of the apartment and stood with a sigh. As he heard Lee moving around with the food he slowly made his way back out to the living room and sank down onto the couch.

Tarin really wasn’t hungry, but he wanted to be sure that Lee ate so he said, ”You go ahead.” nodding towards the food.

Finally, as Lee was getting the food at the door, she felt Tarin making his way out of his room. Grabbing plates on her way back, Lee saw Tarin already on the couch.

Setting everything on the table, Lee sat down as well. And turned a slightly confused look at Tarin when he said for her to ‘go ahead’. While Tarin did often wait until she had started dishing out her own food before he did, he had never said it like that.

Only waiting another few seconds, Lee leaned forward and started pulling things out of the bag and loading her plate up.

Yet, when she sat back and started to eat, Tarin still wasn’t getting any food. He was just sitting there. And even though she didn’t know what was going on, what had put him in the mood he’d been in since getting home, it wasn’t the comfortable silence they always had together.

”Are you not hungry?” Lee asked, glancing over at Tarin.

Lee started getting her food and despite the fact that Lee had said that they’d talk after dinner, Tarin still didn’t think that he was going to be able to eat any time soon.

Tarin knew he had a decision to make, he could either dig in his heels and refuse to talk to Lee, or he could come clean. Neither option really ended very well for Tarin, but even if it was hard to admit, he knew that if he didn’t talk about this it would be a really bad thing, not just for him, but for them.

”The other night when we ended up at the Mansion, you put off getting to the infirmary to try and find stairs so I wouldn’t freak out in the elevator.” Tarin sighed, ”I know that it wasn’t a huge deal…but I just realized how ridiculous the whole thing had gotten, so I decided that I needed to do some work.”

Tarin shrugged, ”That’s it. It was fine, but it was harder than I thought it would be, and it put me in a mood. I didn’t want to drag you into it because it’s my baggage and you’ve got enough to worry about without babysitting me in elevators all the time.”

There. Was there a chance this would be the end of it? No. Had he tried? Yes.

Lee asked about Tarin being hungry and he didn’t answer. Tarin just sat there in silence. It hadn’t even been a question to do with emotions, nothing about what had happened that day, and yet he wasn’t answering, wasn’t speaking to her.

Lee was starting to contemplate telling Tarin to just go back to his room if he wasn’t going to talk to her at all when he actually spoke.

This was all because of his problems with elevators, the issues he was having with the claustrophobia? Which he had decided to do something about because she had been trying to find stairs for him the other night at the mansion.

”But it’s not ridiculous, Tarin,” Lee told him gently as she turned to face him more directly. ”I used to have full on panic attacks myself at the thought of becoming pregnant. And I was just scared and worried about what would happen, it’s not like my panic attacks were caused by actually being in a situation you have a phobia of.”

Lee sat there for a moment just looking at Tarin, her plate sitting all but forgotten on her lap. ”But I can understand why talking about all that would put you in a mood. I mean, it was harder than I expected it to be when I went to talk with Dr Rossi today, and we didn’t even dig into anything serious.”

Lee spoke, and Tarin just stared at her for a minute.

”Before we go any further, can we just acknowledge that growing an entire human being is slightly different from riding in an elevator?” Even without powers something like that seemed like a good reason to have panic attacks.

Lee seemed to think that because it was a phobia it somehow made Tarin’s issues less ridiculous and he shook his head. Then she was speaking again and Tarin tilted his head slightly as she mentioned talking with a doctor. Lee had mentioned making an appointment the other day, but she hadn’t said what kind. She had also misunderstood what he’d said. It was so very tempting to just let it go and try to flip the conversation back on Lee, but that wouldn’t help the next time he went to the Mansion.

”I didn’t talk to anyone.” Tarin said, frowning slightly down at his hands, ”I can’t see how that would have helped anything at all.”