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Nathan cursed as that dreaded Game Over popped up on the screen, Crash Bandicoot hanging his head in shame. He sighed, slumping down on the couch as he dropped the controller on the seat next to him and glared at the screen. He'd never understand this stupid game. The only reason he'd put it on was because Elena told him to take a break and No Nate, more research doesn't count .
Standing up from the couch, he stretched, before looking at the clock. It was getting late, and he knew Elena had been working for hours now. She must be hungry.
Making his way over to the fridge, he opened the door and stared at its contents. They'd only gone grocery shopping a matter of days ago, but his mind drew a blank as he tried to think about what to cook. Rifling through the fridge, he eventually managed to uncover the ingredients for two things. But which one would Elena prefer?
He could just ask her?
Putting the food back in the fridge, he made his way up the stairs, aiming for Elena's study. He stopped when he saw the ladder to the attic was pulled down, frowning. He hadn't forgotten to put it back up before he'd gone downstairs had he? He was sure he hadn't.
Climbing the ladder, he popped his head up through the gap and looked around. At first it looked like there was no one up there, and then he caught sight of a blond ponytail poking up from behind some boxes. Smiling at the sight, he pulled himself up through the gap and got to his feet.
"Hey Hun, it's getting late, what do you want fo-" He stopped dead as he saw the box that she had in front of her. He saw the edges of a denim jacket inside, and the off-white journal that usually rested on top was in Elena's hands. Open.
Elena turned to look at him, her eyes confused as she held the picture that had been poking out of the pages in her hand.
"I was trying to find some spare camera parts and I… Nate who are these kids?" She asked curiously. She turned the picture to face him and he froze as he looked at the image it held.
His own face, bruised and cut up from that fight with that stupid kid. He'd seemed like such a big deal back in the Orphanage, but now he couldn't even remember the kid's name. An oversized denim jacket was slung around his shoulders, and he was buried under the arm of someone holding him in a tight, protective grip. He held off looking at the other person in the photo as long as he could, but eventually his traitorous eyes betrayed him.
Sam.
His eyes burned and Elena's curiosity quickly turned to shock.
"Nate?" Dropping the journal and the picture back in the box, she hurried over to him as the first of the tears rolled down his cheek. Grabbing the computer chair, she yanked it over to them. "C'mere, sit down."
He dropped into the chair, bowing his head in an attempt to hide his face as his shoulders shook. It was to no avail, however, as Elena crouched down in front of him. She stared up at his heartbroken face and the worry began to eat at her.
"Hey." She said, placing a hand on his knee and shaking it lightly. "What's going on?"
There was a pause as Nate struggled to pull himself together. He scrubbed angrily at the tears on his face. "Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Yeah. Nothing." He sniffed. "I'm fine."
"Bullshit." He shot a glare her way, but it crumbled at the concern written all over her face. He fell silent, closing his eyes and just taking a moment to breathe. Elena rubbed his knee soothingly, waiting patiently as he gradually calmed himself down.
"Was it the journal?" She promoted gently. "I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to be messing with anything in that box. I just… saw that picture and… I don't know."
"No." Nate shook his head. "It wasn't the journal. I mean, it's part of it but it's not…"
"Then what…?"
"Its… It's Sam." He finally choked out. It wasn't a name she could ever remember hearing before.
"And Sam is?"
"My brother." Elena's hand stopped it's comforting movements, frozen.
His brother? She'd been married to Nate for some time now, and he'd never mentioned family. She supposed she'd just assumed that Nate didn't have any family outside of Sully. Finding out now that he'd had a brother all this time, it made her wonder just how well she knew her own husband.
An unsteady breath, so small it was almost inaudible, escaped Nate. Placing aside her concerns over secrets for now, she continued trying to comfort him. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out what to say, when Nate began to speak.
"He's… he's gone." His voice wavered, and he scrubbed angrily at his face again as he tried to calm himself down.
"Nate, I'm… I'm so sorry." She said, her heart aching for him. "When did he…?"
"Fourteen years ago. Not far off the exact date actually." He laughed bitterly. She winced at the sound of it, having never heard him laugh like that in all the years she'd known him. "We were in prison…"
Somehow Nate being in prison was the least surprising bit of all of this.
"We hadn't done anything wrong… this time. We were trying to get a better look at the ruins that were just outside the prison grounds. We tried getting in legally but… yeah, getting in as prisoners was what we ended up doing." He said. "It was the Warden who let us in. Vargus. And he found out that what we were after was valuable and he wanted a bigger cut. The guy we were working with, Rafe, he… he didn't like that."
"What did he do?" She almost hated to ask.
"Waited until the right moment and then stabbed him."
"Jesus."
"Yeah." He snorted. "It was… a fucking stupid thing to do. Next thing we know, alarms are going off and guards are everywhere and we're just running . Rafe had an escape planned and everything. We were almost there , but…"
Nate clenched his hands into fists, and Elena placed a reassuring hand on top, trying to give him the strength to continue.
"Sam couldn't make a jump himself. It was too far. So I told him to jump, that I'd catch him. And I did, I had him . But… the guards fired and he…" His voice broke, and his chest shuddered under the weight of his emotions. Tears were rolling down his cheeks again and Elena grasped his hand tightly, preparing herself for what was to come.
"He was choking up blood… and I told him to grab my hand. Told him I'd pull him up but he… he slipped through my grasp and he just fell and…" His voice wavered dangerously, and he was grabbing her hand so tightly it almost hurt. "I didn't want to leave him but Rafe… Rafe said we had to, that he was… I didn't know what to do ."
Fourteen years ago, Nate would have been in his mid-twenties. Elena thought back to her own mid-twenties, and though she had felt so grown up at the time, she knew now that she had been so young. So innocent. She tried to think of herself going through the things she had now at that age and found that she couldn't. Imagining Nate having to go through this? Watching his own brother die? Her heart sank and she grasped his hand back even tighter, not wanting to let him go.
"It was my fault." The words exploded from his lips, and she almost recoiled at the sheer amount of self hatred dripping from them. "If he hadn't been so worried about me then he'd still be-"
"You don't know that."
"But I-"
"No, Nate." Elena said firmly. "If anyone's to blame in this situation, it's Rafe for killing the Warden over money. It's the Guard's for shooting to kill. It's sure as hell not yours."
Nate started down at her, uncomprehending. She could see the guilt in his eyes, see the shattered pieces of his heart that she was only now discovering existed.
"I left him." He said quietly.
"You got out alive, and safe. He was your brother, Nate. That's what he would have wanted."
His face crumpled and he buried his face in his hands as the first broken sob escaped his lips. Elena stood up from her crouch, ignoring her protesting knees, and wrapped her arms around him. Tightly, as if to protect him from the world that had kicked him while he was down so many times. She rocked him back and forth gently as he finally buckled under the pressure of over a decade of guilt.
And if her own eyes burned as well? Well, no one would know but her.
Elena pushed herself back from her desk, stretching and grimacing as her spine popped disconcertingly. Rolling her shoulders, she stood and began gathering her notes, trying to put them in some semblance of order. She was interrupted by the sound of her phone vibrating on the desk. She cursed as the vibrations almost caused it to fall off of the edge, catching it before it could tilt and looking at the screen.
It was Nate.
"Hey Hun." She said, pinning the phone between her face and her shoulder as she continued sorting her papers. "Everything okay?"
"Elena…" She immediately stopped at the unsteady tone of his voice.
"Nate, what's wrong?"
"There's… there's someone you need to meet."