( 10 )

After his run-in with Kristin, Nick had retreated to the relative safety of the library, where he'd helped Alex with her research until she fell asleep; head slumped on a pile of books. He'd continued reading, eventually coming across some familiar handwriting. He opened the cover cautiously, observing his own scrawled words on the page. Thumbing through a few entries about midterms and a crush he'd had on his math teacher, he came to the date he had been searching for:

Talya crashed my dad's car. I was out for a run when I found her, she didn't get very far in the thing. She doesn't even have her permit, and the last time I tried to teach her to drive stick we nearly ended up in the bay. I can't figure out why she took it in the first place. It's wrecked, a total loss, and I'm pretty sure that when my dad gets back from his trip someone's head will roll.

At first I thought she was freaked out about the crash, she was pretty banged up, but when I tried to take her back to the house he begged me to just walk with her. Said she didn't care where we went, as long as it wasn't to that house. I think she would have followed me anywhere.

The entry stopped there, but Nick's memories continued on. They'd walked all the way down to the water, and she'd started to cry. He'd told her not to worry about the car, that his dad was a prick who beat up on him and his mom, and he deserved it. Then, with all the confidence a fifteen-year-old boy could muster, he'd told her he was in love with her. She'd only cried harder, which he didn't think was a good sign.

He hadn't written any of that down. Leaving a paper trail meant people could pin you down, prove things you would rather keep a secret. Once he started thinking about that night he couldn't stop, the sharp details coming back in waves.

It had been raining, and she'd been wearing a yellow dress. Even with a bruise on her cheek and a cut over her eye, he'd thought she looked beautiful. Something about it felt strange, though, now that he was thinking about it. He realized after a while it was because he still didn't know why she'd taken the car in the first place. He was busy forming various hypotheses when Philip came bursting through the door, an unconscious Natalya cradled in his arms.

"What happened?" Nick asked, panic lacing his voice. Pushing the journals to the side he managed to make space for her on the table and wake up Alex at the same time. After rubbing the sleep from her eyes Alex was shrugging off her sweater to use as a pillow.

"I found her in the hallway, passed out. She's got a bad bump on her head, and it's bleeding. She hasn't come back around since I found her," Philip told them, pulling away the tee shirt he'd grabbed from where he'd pressed it to stop the flow of blood. Kristin was drawn from the control room by the commotion. She reached out coolly to check Natalya's pulse, and Nick fought the urge to slap her hand away.

"Why didn't you put her in a bed?" she asked, and was met with three blank stares. When someone got hurt in the house, you brought them to the library. That was just how it worked. Alex was the first to come to her senses.

"I'll go get Rachel," she announced, taking a single step toward the door. She didn't get further than that before Natalya sat up with a groan, hand flying to her head. When her hand came back down it was flecked with blood, and she groaned loudly.

"What the hell…" she muttered, nearly falling back down again. Nick was behind her in a heartbeat, giving her a shoulder to lean against.

"Are you okay? What happened to you?" Alex asked, picking Philip's tee shirt back up and pressing it against the wound. Natalya shrugged, taking the shirt from Alex and holding it to her own head.

"I was walking to my room to get dressed, and all of a sudden the lights were going out. Then I woke up here," she finished, and Kristin laughed a little too loud.

"You probably just passed out. Maybe you should eat a sandwich," Kristin suggested, and Natalya was sitting up a little straighter.

"Maybe you should eat a…" she started to say, but Nick was pulling her back toward him.

"Alex, why don't you go and get Rachel anyway. She might have a concussion," he suggested, interrupting Natalya's vulgar response. Natalya was already pulling away, struggling to stand up.

"I'm fine, really. Look, the bleeding has stopped," she offered, pulling back the compress and touching her fingers to her forehead tenderly. She managed to get to her feet, stumbling just a little, and moved away from the table. "I'm just… tired. I'm going to go take a nap."

"And if you do have a concussion it will be the longest nap of your life," Kristin added before she could stop herself, and received piercing glares from everyone in the room.

"Just let Rachel take a look at you before you go. It would make me feel a lot better," Philip pleaded, and finally Natalya agreed, following as he led her out of the room. Alex rubbed the back of her neck, stretching sore muscles gingerly.

"Did I fall asleep?" she asked, and Nick nodded absently, watching as Natalya and Philip retreated from the room.

"You looked peaceful, so I let you stay where you were," he explained, and was met with incredulous stares from both Alex and Kristin.

"I looked peaceful sleeping in a wooden dining chair, with my face pressed into an open book?" she wondered, and Nick could only shrug. Kristin was laughing again as she turned to head back into the control room.

"And I thought the members of the Boston house were strange…" she muttered, disappearing from the room. Her laughter could still be heard in the library, and a sharp look passed between Nick and Alex. It certainly was turning into a full house.

After Rachel had checked her out Natalya had practically ran back to her room, claiming exhaustion. Philip stayed behind in the kitchen, watching as Rachel scribbled notes in the margin of the textbook she was reading. He suspected it was busy work, anything to keep her mind off the fact that something evil was after her daughter, again, and that she was virtually powerless to stop it, again. Finally she looked up at him, eyebrows rising expectantly.

"What?" she asked, voice a little sharper than she had intended. He watched her carefully, then took a seat at the table across from her.

"You don't seem to like Natalya very much. Why is that?" he posed. She blinked at him several times, surprised by the forwardness of his question. His emotions from the day before hadn't worn off, making him a little bolder than he would usually have been. After a while the shock faded and she shook her head.

"It's not like that at all. I just don't know her very well," she answered, but Philip wasn't convinced. He gave her a pointed look, which made her sigh loudly. "I'm just not sure she's the best influence on my daughter, okay? Kat's already been having behavior issues, and now Natalya shows up here… I don't know, I just see so much of Kat in Natalya, and from what I've heard things didn't turn out all that well for her here."

"Natalya and Kat are totally different. When Natalya was Kat's age she'd already gone through a lot," Philip tried to tell her, and Rachel laughed shortly.

"You mean things like the unexpected death of a parent? Or maybe seeing strong visions that no one else can see? Things like that?" she asked sarcastically. Philip's wheels were spinning, trying to think of the best way to describe the difference.

"I can't explain it to you, but I've known Natalya for a very long time, and I can tell you that it's just not the same. I don't know how, but it isn't," he told her, pushing himself up from the table and turning toward the window.

"Well, as comforting as that is, Philip, until you can give me a concrete reason as to why I shouldn't expect Kat to be stealing Nick's car and crashing it into a telephone pole, I'm going to do my best to keep some distance between them," she finished, closing her book and beating a hasty retreat. Philip lingered a while, and soon decided that he wanted the answer to the question as much as anyone. He just had no idea how he was going to make that happen.

a/n: i've been sitting on this chapter for a while because, well, i think it's crap. i want to get to the good stuff, but i'm a bit blocked out just now.

as to my kristin hate... it's true, she grew on me, but i hated the way she was introduced. i actually think i remember derek asking in that first episode "is there anything you're not good at?". i mean, REALLY? ::gag::

anyway, almost everyone will be redeemed. next chapter might make you momentarily freaked out, but no worries, good things to come. and ooops, messed up chap numbers. better now.