Usually it was everything. Lee pressed her lips tightly together hearing that. Meaning that Tarin had been tortured like that more times than the dream had played out.

While Tarin sipped his coffee, Lee thought about if there was anything she did want to ask about. She had known that it was horrible just from the first, vague explanation Tarin had given her about the 'training' in the shop. But actually seeing it…

It had been so much worse than she had thought.

"I know you were all brainwashed and conditioned into thinking it was normal or needed to be done," Lee finally said. "But I can't believe that no one ever tried to step in, tried to stop things…"

Lee shook her head then took a sip of coffee. "How long did they do that to you?' Lee then asked quietly. She had thought that this 'training' had only been for a short while after Tarin had joined the group. But he had definitely grown during the course of the dream that she had seen.

"I hope you can," Lee replied when Tarin wondered if he'd be able to step in and save himself the next time he had that nightmare. "Or at least that you're easier to wake. Which," Lee paused, glancing down at the mug still in her hand before looking up at Tarin again. "I'm sorry. I should have told you about all that. It's just, I don't like doing it, didn't think I would do it again, so it wasn't something I had thought about."

”Fear is a powerful motivator…” Tarin said, looking at Lee levelly as he thought back. The memories seemed fresh somehow, but maybe not as raw since he’d literally just been there, felt it. “They were really good at making examples out of people. Brutal examples. Nobody ever tried to stop anything for me, but people had tried in the past.” Tarin frowned, ”I never tried.” he said softly.

How long? Taking another drink of the coffee and sighing slightly, Tarin sat the cup down, ”Off and on the whole time. Had to make sure everything still worked after time. That, and make sure we remembered who had all the weight to throw around.” Tarin hesitated here for a few moments, ”I told you I’d been out to the island before. It was open, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as the first time at the cemetery. It wasn’t always tight spaces, wasn’t always alone. We worked with our powers, learning control in extreme situations, in the heat, in the cold, in pain…”

”Ultimately I think it was to keep us off balance enough that we couldn’t work things out.” Another pause. ’Nobody ever made it far when they tried to run either. They’d get brought back…”

That was enough. Just because the words were flowing didn’t mean that they had to flood the room.

Lee hoped that he could stop the dreams on his own, or that he’d be easier to wake up in the future. Tarin nodded, it was definitely something he’d try if he could get himself lucid enough to manage while he was sleeping.

Should Lee have told him about the thing should could do with dreams? Tarin mulled that over for a few moments. Maybe? It wasn’t like she’d been popping in and out of his dreams at will though. It was like she said. Out of sight, out of mind.

”It’s really okay…” he said ”I just…I hope it wasn’t too much…that what you saw doesn’t change anything.”

Fear could be very powerful. Lee had almost locked herself in the apartment during the Registration Act out of fear. And with what they had done to Tarin, it did not surprise Lee that the 'leadership' of that group had been brutal when they made examples of people.

The entire time that he had been with them. Right up until that fire. But it wasn't just shoving Tarin into small spaces because he was claustrophobic. There had been more. The first time at the cemetery, meaning they had taken him there multiple times. To that island. In extreme situations.

Lee had known that Tarin's early years in New York had been bad, but she hadn't realized just how bad they had been. And people couldn't even leave the group because they would be brought back. Lee could only assume to be punished or otherwise be made an example of.

By the time that Tarin had finished speaking, Lee was shaking her head slightly, sadly. And he really didn't seem to mind the fact that she had entered his dream, just what she had seen when she had, which help ease some of the guilt she felt about the intrusion.

But Tarin's last words just made Lee frown in confusion. "Why would anything I saw, or what you just said, change anything?" she asked as she looked at Tarin across the table. "Well, other than how much I hate them all. Because that has drastically increased. But why would it change anything else?"

Lee was quiet as he spoke, and Tarin had a hard time reading what she was thinking about what he said. Her surprise was as much his fault as anything…he’d never been able to tell her about everything in detail.

Lee seemed surprised that he would worry about what she had seen changing things. It would have been easy here to just let it go or change the subject, maybe Lee hadn’t picked up on anything. The things she had seen, the other questions she had asked. It was only a matter of time before she got there on her own.

“It’s a lot…and it’s really messed up.” he said, frowning and looking down at the table instead of looking at Lee, “You’re always shocked that nobody stepped in. I never stepped in, not once. I doubt I ever would have.”

This was really hard to admit, but after what she’d seen, Tarin figured Lee should understand

”If the fire hadn’t happened, if I hadn’t had to go somewhere else…” the words hung for a moment as Tarin tried to decide if he should actually put them verbally out in the universe.

Again, Lee always tried to convince Tarin that she hadn’t always been the person who would do the right thing…yet every time she told him about a scenario or a situation, she had. The odds hadn’t mattered, the danger hadn’t mattered. She’d been in the camps and she had fought back…

”I would have probably ended up one of the people who enforced the rules.” he admitted quietly, voicing something that had haunted him for twenty years. Other people had tried. They’d known what would likely happen and they had still tried. He hadn’t.

”I don’t know what kind of person that makes me…or what any normal person would think.”

Tarin thought, he was worried, that her thoughts or feelings toward him would change because he had never stepped in to stop what was happening to others either. That if the fire hadn't happened when and how it had, that he would have ended up becoming one of the adults in the group enforcing those horrific rules and tests.

Lee's lips pressed together in a tight line, that crease appearing between her brows. That likely could be true, wasn't it? He had already been in New York, with that group, for what, at least five years when that fire had happened? Since he had been just 14.

Taking a breath, Lee said without a word. She walked to the other side of the table, sitting in Tarin's lap in the space between him and the table. Giving her the unique situation of being able to look into his eyes without having to look up.

"How could I blame you for any of what happened?" Lee asked, her voice gentle but sad. "They threatened and conditioned you from a young age and you were barely an adult when it ended. Maybe you would have eventually, but we'll never know. Just like we'll never know what else they would have done to you before that potentially happened."

"It doesn't change anything," Lee whispered, then leaned in to give Tarin a soft kiss. "I still love you, Tarin."

Lee didn’t say anything, and Tarin didn’t look up from the table. He wanted to give Lee time to digest everything he had said, to really think about it.

He kept looking at the table, trying to decide if he had made a huge mistake until Lee stood up.

For a brief moment, Tarin panicked. Was she leaving? Had he been right the whole time? It wasn’t that he doubted Lee, it was that he doubted himself and what he’d failed to do.

She didn’t leave though, she walked around the table and sat in his lap right there in the chair. Lee was so close that he couldn’t really avoid her eyes as she look at him and spoke.

How could she blame him? Tarin didn’t know, but he definitely blamed himself. Lee kissed him then, and Tarin wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her shoulder.

”I love you too.”

Tarin didn't wrap his arms around her after she had sat on his lap. That was strange, as he normally did that the moment she was close enough for him to wrap his arms around her.

But he looked at her as she spoke. And didn't look happy. No, it was more than that, Lee thought. Obviously he wouldn't look happy with what they were talking about, but there was something else in his eyes that Lee couldn't name.

Only when she had kissed him had Tarin wrapped his arms around her. And buried his head in her shoulder. Lee held Tarin, one hand on his head against her shoulder, the other in his back.

And she just sat there with him in silence for a minute. "You did nothing wrong," Lee murmured, finally breaking the silence. "You did what you had to to survive."

For a while, Tarin just stayed where he was, arms wrapped around Lee as she sat there in his lap at the table. His head was still buried against Lee’s shoulder and Tarin relaxed into Lee as her hand came to the back of his head and her arm wrapped around him. There weren’t any tears or anything like that, but the guilt of what he’d voiced still sat heavy in the pit of Tarin’s stomach. So he stayed where he was, feeling Lee against him, warm and comforting.

It was weird that this had all come out now and not when they’d been in the bedroom. Still, it was something and now it was all out there and Lee hadn’t been utterly disgusted by what he had said.

In fact, Lee spoke a moment later and Tarin lifted his head and looked at her, frowning slightly as she said it wasn’t his fault. That he had just done what he’d needed to do to survive. Yes, he had survived, but so many others hadn’t.

”That’s what I’ve been telling myself for twenty years.” Tarin said, “I even kind of believe it sometimes.”

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Tarin looked at Lee in the eyes again and said, “Thank you.” Then he smiled slightly, ”Dr Rossi’s going to have a field day with all of this when she manages to pry it out of me.”

When Tarin lifted his head, Lee let her hand fall from behind his head to rest on his shoulder. And when he spoke, something clenched in her chest. She knew that guilt, if for very different reasons. And while she had learned to live with it, and was now able to go long stretches of time without really thinking about it, the guilt had never really went away.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Lee repeated gently.

Lee then smiled when Tarin mentioned Dr Rossi. "Yeah, she probably will," Lee replied. "But I'll be there with you if you want me to be. Like always."

Which was something that Dr Rossi was not overly happy about, but Lee was only there because Tarin wanted her to be. And the sessions were a lot more productive that way. With her in the room, Tarin was more likely to actually talk rather than simply answer the doctor's questions. And she hadn't learned enough yet to always ask the right questions to get the answers she was after.

Lee repeated that he hadn’t done anything wrong and he didn’t respond. Hearing Lee say it more than once definitely gave Tarin something to think about, but it was so hard for him to let himself off the hook that he just couldn’t make the words come out. Still, knowing that Lee wasn't going anywhere despite knowing yet another one of the dark things rolling around in Tarin’s head lifted a weight he didn’t even know he’d been carrying around.

Lee agreed that the good doctor would have plenty to say when and if she was told everything Tarin had just told Lee and he had to shake his head a little bit, “You know she doesn’t like it when you stay lately.” he said, not knowing why the doctor preferred to sit in near silence with him instead.

If the woman would actually ask any questions, Tarin thought he might have an easier time interacting with her on his own. Dr Rossi expected him to carry the conversation a lot of the time though, and Tarin simply didn’t have it in him to just offer up the darkest parts of his psyche.

Still. He took another deep breath, “I guess I could bring it up though.” It really wasn’t right to expect Lee to be the only one to help him handle all of this, he was glad she knew now, and he knew she’d be there for him. Lee had her own things to worry about though.

That thought made Tarin realize something else.

”As much as I’d like to sit like this all morning, if you don’t move today will be the day that Kevin wakes up early and comes out here and he might move himself out if that happens.”

Dr Rossi really hadn't been liking Lee in the sessions with Tarin recently. And had been sending Lee out of the room more often than she had been before. When Tarin said he'd be ok with her waiting outside, Lee had gone out to wait without comment or complaint. But from what Lee had gathered from Tarin after those sessions, not nearly as much ended up getting done.

"When you're ready to," Lee told Tarin. "Especially since you weren't exactly ready to tell me. And I'm sure the doctor still has stuff to talk with you about when I'm not in the room."

When Tarin continued speaking, Lee couldn't help but laugh. "That would be just our luck, wouldn't it?" Lee said referring to Kevin waking up early. Leaning in, Lee gave Tarin one more kiss before reluctantly standing up. Despite how that morning had gone so far, and her reason for moving to sit on his lap in the first place, Lee was liking her current seating arrangement.

Making her way back around the table, Lee sat down and took another sip of her cooling coffee. "What should we do with our morning, then?"

”I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to talk about any of it.” Tarin said grimly when Lee said he should wait to talk to Dr Rossi about all of this until he was ready.

“And that’s the whole problem.” Tarin said, “She doesn’t have things to talk about. She asks me vague questions and sits there and looks at me.” he knew he sounded a bit sullen, “I don’t know why she does that because she’ll hit you with super focused questions that get right to the point.” The Doctor has done that the first time they’d gone to see her and a few times since.

It wasn’t important right now though.

Lee laughed when Tarin mentioned Kevin and Tarin nodded when she said it would be their luck. Sometimes it was like the kid had some sort of sense that drove him to walk into the common areas any time Tarin and Lee bent the rules about common areas.

Still. Lee gave Tarin one more kiss and returned to her seat. It wasn’t even 7 am and Tarin kind of felt like he’d lived a whole week. Grabbing his phone from his pocket, Tarin checked his phone to see what the day’s appointments looked like and sighed. That’s right. He had a busy day. The gym was looking like less of a possibility.

Lee asked what Tarin wanted to do with the rest of the morning and he set his phone down on the table and grabbed his coffee to take a big drink. He was probably going to need quite a bit more of that before the day was over.

”I’m open to suggestion for this morning.” he said, ”Mets play tonight though and if they keep up this winning streak they may end up with a shot at the playoffs.”

Lee nodded when Tarin said he didn't think that he would ever be ready to talk to Dr Rossi about this. That made sense. How many things had Tarin actually been ready to talk to her about compared to how many had just kind of…come out randomly?

When Tarin mentioned it, Lee realized that he was right about the questions Dr Rossi asked. When the woman actually asked Lee questions in the sessions, they were direct with almost pin point accuracy to get at what she was driving at. The questions that the doctor asked Tarin were far more vague, allowing Tarin to give a simple or vague answer in return. If that's what she did when Lee was out of the room as well, it was no wonder the time she was in the room ended up being more productive.

He was open for suggestions for what to do with the morning before they had to work. And there was a game that night. "Well, I was thinking of getting another cup of coffee," Lee said after a couple moments of thought as she looked across the table. "Then maybe some guitar? It's been a while again."

Lee didn’t have any more suggestions about Dr Rossi and that was fine with Tarin. Maybe it was something he could ask about the next time they were there. Maybe somehow, despite the fact that it never worked, the doctor thought that Tarin needed space to talk. Wasn’t she a professional though?

They weren’t going to finish the puzzle though. In fact, Tarin kind of looked at it with a bit of disdain as Lee said she was going to get another cup of coffee. Tarin could already feel the caffeine kicking in and he’d only had half a cup. A side effect of so rarely having anything with caffeine in it, Tarin supposed.

Lee had an idea for what was next and as she suggested guitar Tarin nodded gratefully at the idea. It really had been a while and Lee’s playing was always so relaxing …

”Im just glad you didn’t suggest cleaning out the fridge.” he said, getting up from his chair and grabbing his coffee to move to the living room. ”We will have to save that for later.”

Lee shook her head when Tarin mentioned the fridge. "It is far too early to do that," Lee commented as she also stood up and grabbed her coffee cup.

Except that Lee made her way to the kitchen rather than the living room so she could refill her coffee cup.

It really didn't take long to pour some more coffee and make her way back out to Tarin. Sitting down, Lee took a couple sips of coffee as she sat there quietly.

"Hey, have any of the songs I gave you recently caught your interest?" Lee asked, referring to the playlists she had periodically been sending to Tarin. "Or is there anything you'd like me to play?"