Well. There was that. Apparently this lie, no matter how large it was, had simply been to cover up the others. Man that made Quin angry. The anger felt good though, it was so much better than the helplessness had been before.

Oh, and his reasoning. He hadn't told her because she was a cop. Yeah, he'd totally lied to protect her from a conflict between heart and duty. Right, that was definitely why he'd lied. To protect her. Quin ran a hand through her hair, wincing when it caught in a tangle.

And then they finally got to it, and he finally admitted it. All of this, the fight they were having now, was because he'd been selfish. He could tell himself that he'd been doing her a favor all along, that he'd been protecting her from having to make a choice that would be as hard as the one right now was. The truth of the matter was that he'd been selfish because he hadn't wanted to mess up the perfect little life he'd made up, while living off of money he'd gotten from conning people.

She waved off the police station thing. If she was going to take him in, she'd have already been in the process. Quin knew she'd regret it later, and that it was going to eat at her, but she wouldn't go that far. Not yet at least.

As for the last. That's what this all came down to, wasn't it? Was there anything he could do to make this up to her? Did they stand a chance? Quin opened her mouth, then shut it again. They'd been together for so long...she'd shacked up innumerable times with someone when she hadn't even known his real name. It was all so creepy in hindsight...then again, was it?

Did the name mean that much in the grand scheme of things? Quin toyed with the charm bracelet she was still wearing and thought about when she'd gotten that. Did these things about the past really matter so much in the face of what they'd gone through?

Yeah. They did. Trust was so important...

"I don't know." she said finally, in response to everything she'd heard and thought over the last few moments.

"I don't know what to do from here. You keep telling me that this whole, "Nate" thing was a new leaf. A new person. The problem is...that the other guy is you too. You can't just shut off a part of yourself because it makes it hard to do the things you want to do. I don't know that guy at all, and I don't know if I want to know him."

Quin took a deep breath. "I don't even know what to call you. Not even in my head." she said, "Do you have any idea how effed up that is?"

It was hard to face the fact that she had plenty of good points. Deep down, Stephen was still a part of him, and there were times when he felt the temptations of his former life calling to him. He never worried about succumbing to them, but they were there.

If there was one thing to relate to, it was the name-calling problem. "If it helps, you aren't the only one. I feel like a schizophrenic most of the time." It was the drawback of using aliases.

They were at a crossroads, and neither of them knew what came next. She knew nothing about Stephen, and there were definitely things she should not know. There were a few things that she could know, and maybe it was important she did. "Stephen never stole from people who were struggling. He never committed any violent crimes. He was how I originally learned how to paint, fence and cook. Stephen was the one to fall in love for the first and only time before you."

The silence in the room was too unnerving to not resume talking. "He helped make me what I am, but I've done everything I can to be something better. I even anonymously donated away the money when I told you I love you."

Nate shoved his hands in his pockets. "Lots of guys say it, but in the most literal way, being with you has made more of an honest man out of me than I thought I had left."

Heh. Was he suggesting that she should feel sorry for him over how schizophrenic he felt? Seriously? It didn’t actually seem that way, but something about the way he was trying to empathize with her confusion rubbed Quin the wrong way.

He’d learned so much from Stephen, but it had all been to con people He should have known that it wouldn’t matter who he’d taken from, the law was the law. He really needed to stop bringing all of that up too, if he didn’t want to end up in cuffs.

The sentiment was nice, but right now it just wasn’t enough. What would be enough though? Quin honestly didn’t know.

”Prove it.” she said.

"Prove it."

Prove it?

How does someone prove that he has turned his life around? There was not exactly much of a paper trail. "I'll do whatever it takes. If you want to see closed accounts, I can do that. If you need proof that I've been living off of paintings and a teacher's salary for the last months, I'll scrounge it up. From this moment on, I won't tell you a single lie.

"I'm not sure what I could do, but I'll do it. I love you more than anything I've ever known, and if there is anything I can do to show you I'm the man you loved."

The whole evening was wearing Nate down, and if there was anything he could do to make things better, it was not going to happen in one night. "Maybe I should give you some space..." he muttered in defeat.

Promises were nice, but just like everything else, it wasn’t enough right now.

”I don’t care about the money trail.” Quin said. Every con-man needed at least one legitimate identity to fall back on when they were in need. Who was to say that this one wasn’t it? Plus, if Stephen was as good at this whole thing as he’d made it sound, a paper trail wasn’t necessarily reliable. ”I’m talking about real stuff. We’ll see how it goes.”


He’d said he’d do what it took, and then he said that maybe he needed to give her some space. Quin nodded her head slowly.

”I think you should.” she replied. There was too much going on in her head to risk letting him stay around. At least for now. This needed to be a definite decision on her part, and while things didn’t look good for his chances, she supposed that Na- that Stephen deserved a chance. It also presented a whole new set of problems.

How was she ever going to explain all of this to the people she knew, the ones who knew “Nate”. She might have hesitated to drag him into jail, but she knew a few people who wouldn’t.

It was a problem she was really going to have to think on.

”I’ll call you.”

And so it all came down to, "I'll call you." He would give her space, and she would make up her mind. When that time came, if he was incredibly lucky, she would decide to still talk to him. If he was unlucky, she would reconsider breaking out the handcuffs. Either way, he would be waiting. "I'll be waiting. I'm not going anywhere." For once, there would be no running from his problems.

Nate walked in silence to the door until his hand was turning the knob. He turned around one last time. "I love you, Quin." Maybe it was not fair to her, but he could not leave without saying it one more time.

Nate/Stephen trudged in silence until he was in the elevator. There, he calmly punched a wall on the way down and out of the building.