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“I’m happy, Rhonda,” he says, and he’s smiling, but it isn’t his smile. It’s not warm and kind and tinted with a little sadness, it’s not helplessly sincere and his eyes don’t quite crinkle at the corners. The smile is too wide. His eyes are too blank.
God. What has Curtain done to him?
(Is Number Two like this, too?)
“It’s not real,” Rhonda says, cautious and afraid. Her heart is filled with cold dread.
“I haven’t been happy in so long, Rhonda,” he says, and while that frighteningly blank, happy tone still covering his words like a glossy sheen, he sounds more like himself than he has since seeing him again. He sounds tired. “Not really.”
Rhonda’s chest feels tight. He’s been through so much, and while they’d all known that were things he didn’t tell them, burdens he carried alone, she hadn’t realized just how much he was fighting it. Was he really so depressed? Miserable? Or was it just Curtain talking?
“I’m not guilty, or sad, or angry. I’m just… happy.”
Rhonda suddenly realizes that he was not going to come with her willingly. If you could call anything he did willingly, at the moment. Whatever Curtain was doing to his acolytes, he’d done it to Mr. Benedict, too. And she had no idea how to fix it.
She took a faltering step forward, and he didn’t move. She took another step, then another, and then all but tackled him into a hug.
He stumbled back slightly with an involuntary oof, arms frozen half-outstretched on either side of her as she hugged him tightly.
“Mr. Benedict,” she says, and she’s a little shocked at the sound of her own voice—hoarser, thinner, almost thready. “Nicholas.”
He’s still looking over her shoulder, almost blankly, eyes staring straight ahead. But he blinks, a little too rapidly, as she buries her face in his neck. The smile has faded partly, more out of shock than anything, but the blissful euphoria is still there, light and breezy and sweeping away his troubles.
He blinks again. A tear falls down his face. Why is he crying? He’s happy. He’s so happy.
Another tear. Nicholas doesn’t understand why. He’s happy. It’s taking effort not to smile again. Why is he trying not to smile?
Rhonda squeezes a little tighter, unable to see his face. Trying to will herself the courage to get out of here. To come back.
And then, slowly, hesitantly… he. He hugs back.
It’s not his usual sort of hug: not tight and warm and laughing. But nonetheless, his arms hesitantly come up to wrap around her, too, and he pulls her a little closer.
“It’s… alright,” he says, so softly, and his tone has changed. Still not whole, still not himself, but not that happy, either. Almost confused, but also careful, soft, like he really is trying to reassure her.
Of course he’s trying to reassure her. She lets out a tiny little sob, and hugs him tighter. He adjusts his grip, just holding her, and for a moment, she lets herself believe that it really is all going to be okay.