sketchycharacter

[It's like he never knew her at all.]

I have no idea.

[Ugh. This is awkward now. For a guy who ran away from potential heartbreaking like it had a gun aimed at him, Nate had made the transition to close, platonic friends with Chloe incredibly well. Their past had never been weird, except now it is, kind of.]

It's a little late to apologize for sleeping with you, not that I would anyway. [Even though, for the first time, he feels a twinge of guilt.] Plus I don't think it was ever about that for him and me. Harry had it out for me way before he knew.

Whatever the reason he kept it pretty well hidden, I had no idea until Istanbul that he even had a problem with you. It wasn't like he and I were even- we had fun but it was never anything serious. At least it wasn't for me.

[But apparently not for Harry.]

Do you want to know what the worst part is though?

[That's how he'd justified it in his head. Harry and Chloe were nothing serious, and Harry and Nate—well, they weren't the kind of best buddies where a stolen girl or some stolen cash would be the end of the world. And Chloe had been free to make her own choices, not a thing that could be possessed by anyone.

It's all true. Knowing that doesn't make him feel much better.]

What's that?

I don't hate him. I never thought about how I'd feel if I ever saw him again because he was, you know, dead, and it wasn't like it was ever going to be an issue.

[Man this is a surprisingly soul baring conversation to be on the phone.... card... space tech... thing.]

He was a prick but he didn't deserve what Lazarević did to him. He didn't need to die like that.

...I don't either.

[It's the distance afforded by the TAB that lets him say it when having this talk in person might be too close, when he's not sure he could admit it to Sully or Elena. Chloe is the only other person here who ever cared about Harry Flynn.]

I should. I am angry at him, still. What he did to Elena—

[No, he can't go farther down that path. Even now the thought of losing her chokes him.]

But it shouldn't happen have happened that way. We should have all come out of there and gone our separate ways.

What he did to Elena was unforgivable.

[And it was. Out of all of them, Elena alone had been the only one to try to go Harry's aid. The one person who had no previous connection to Harry Flynn, had never been on friendly terms with him, had never had a beer with him or sat up half the night trash talking with him, or even rolled about in the sheets with him for a few careless hours of fun, no strings attached sex.

Or at least, that's how it had been for her. Maybe Harry hadn't seen it that way.

And maybe it was because she and Nate had known him that they hadn't been the ones to step forward and help him when he was bleeding and half-dead with a ticking time bomb in his hand. They knew him well enough not to trust him, knew him well enough to know that he was pissed as all hell at both of them.

But Elena had only tried to help, and she'd been hurt the worst.

She huffs softly on the other end of the line.]

It's not like we can chew him out about it now, can we? We did get away. He died. He died and he just-

[There's a lump in her throat and she hates it.]

This is such bollocks.

[Yes. Yes it was. Nate will never forgive Harry for hurting her, never forget the way his stomach had lurched and his heart had cracked when he saw Elena lying on the floor of the temple. In that moment he hadn't known that she wasn't already dead from the initial blast, and it had been days before he'd been able to fully breathe again.

It hadn't even been personal, he knows that. He hadn't targeted her. That just makes it worse.

But he still can't hate Harry. He wishes he could.]

He's finally got one over on us, huh? The ultimate trump card.

[He huffs a laugh, without any humor.]

I guess...we let him live his life, now that he has one again. It's not like we can put him in jail for what he did. [And if people here got thrown in jail for their pre-Ingress misdeeds, he and Chloe and Sully would probably be there too.] Maybe he'll make fewer stupid decisions this time.

Well there's no batshit, balls to the wall crazy Serbian warlord around for him to follow around this time, maybe he will make fewer stupid decisions.

[On her end, she sits down and slumps against the nearest available rock as she sweeps her fingers through her hair.]

Jesus this is turning out to be one fan-fucking-tastic week, all things considered. Tell me Nate, how exactly do we wind up in these messes because if this is karma for something then it's an even bigger bitch than I thought.

[Yeah, no shit. But the way things are going, Lazarevic is going to be the next one through the Ingress.]

Well...we have stolen a lot of shit. Maybe karma has strong feelings about theft.

[Don't even joke about that or put voice to that idea, Nate. Don't even.]

If karma had strong feelings about theft then we'd get robbed. We wouldn't have been stolen or given dead... what do we even call him now? Friend? Enemy? Acquaintance?

'Shithead' works pretty well.

[Gets right to the point.]

Yeah. I guess it does.

[She has to pause for a bit.]

Shit, I've been wallowing about all this and I haven't even asked you how you feel about it all.

'sokay.

[No offense taken.]

I feel...pretty much what I said before. I'm angry at what he did to Elena—hell, I'm furious. I saw him and it was like it happened yesterday.

But I can't hate him. A really small part of me was glad to see him alive.

It would make it so much easier if we could. Hate him, I mean. With Lazarevíc that part came easy, but with Harry? I mean, he's a bloody idiot and I want to beat the snot out of him for being so stupid but I can't hate him either.

[It doesn't lessen the desire to kick his arse though.]

So what do we do? Live and let live and keep out of his way?

[That sums it up. Be nice if they could give him a good shitkicking and have that resolve things, somehow.]

I guess so. I mean, we could kill him and stash the body somewhere [ha ha ha he's joking right...probably] but I think that would be inviting trouble. And we get enough of that.

Not to mention it would really piss him off if he sprung back up again like a daffodil.

[That's if he even comes back. What even are the rules of space reanimation anyway?]

So we ignore him, kick his ass if he tries anything, and keep an eye out.

That's the idea.

[It sucks to not be able to act, but they don't have many options. It's the Ingress that did this.]

We'll just have to see what happens.

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