When Kim suggested to Nick that they invite guests to their home more often, she always meant as in inviting them over for a cookout or something along those lines. Not to discuss runaway deputies. Or the heralds said deputies ran away with.

"Nick, you knew that eventually we were going to have to talk about her." Kim was sure he really needed the reminder. Almost all conversations regarding the situation focused primarily on Nathan and only briefly touched on the subject of Faith.

"I know, don't mean I have to like it!"

"Neither do I, but it's her the deputy ran away with." Kim wasn't particularly interested in what Faith had to say in her defense, if she even had any. It was merely to better understand why Nathan did what he did that day.

"I think it's time we all take a step back and try and figure out why exactly Rook saved her."

"Don't think we'll get somewhere when it's only me, you and Grace..." Trying to bring anyone else in at the moment, especially resistance-wise, would likely derail the conversation to killing Faith and bringing the deputy back. Or alternatively: Shoot them both and rid themselves of the trouble of any violent reactions on the deputy's part.

Kim thought about calling Mary May but figured she must be busy with her bar and keeping Falls End in check.

"Hurk and Sharky are still Rook's friends, I'm sure they've got something... useful? to say about the whole ordeal." Nick had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the suggestion. He knew trying to get anything useful out of Hurk and Sharky would be pain.

"Well, what can we talk about? We don't know a lot about her, if anything it'd be Sharky who we'd have to ask or maybe Hurk."

"Then we'll ask them," Regardless if Nick wasn't up for it, Kim had already called them over.

"Not that I don't appreciate them or their help, but... why do we need them?"

"Because unlike you, me or Grace, Hurk and Sharky know more about Jacob and Faith... at least I hope." It was important to try and narrow down the reasons for Nathan's decision to not kill Faith. So everyone agreed to draw the comparisons between her, John and Jacob. It was the whole point of everyone meeting up in the residence.

"What about you honey?" She only then realized she never asked Nick if Rook had even tried to talk to him. It completely slipped her mind for whatever reason. "Did he ever try and explain himself to you?"

"Uh, very briefly. It was like... three maybe four days before they ran away he talked to me about it." Nick wasn't exactly angry at his decision, he was more confused than anything. Nathan, through gritted teeth and scowl, tried justifying his decision but the message wasn't going through very clearly when he was cussing up a storm under his breath.

"Or tried to at least..."

"Look, I must've caught him in a bad mood that day cause he looked like he was out to kill." After Nathan had semi-explained his actions he stormed back up to the cell where Faith was. Before he left he had told Nick they'd talk more, but by the next day Nick was back in the Holland Valley.

"See why it's important we talk about her? If he wasn't able to, then it's up to us to figure it all out as best we can before they're found."

"Who else did he have with him before? Jess?"

Nick shook his head. "She left to the Henbane a while ago, plus she's not easy to talk to unless you're Nate."

He figured that with Hurk and Sharky present Jess would be less inclined to talk and more focused on finding the pair.

"What about Adelaide?"

"Also in the river. Grace spoke with her, and found out that Nate had actually made contact with her at some point but that's about all she said..." Nick was curious as to what side Adelaide was on. If he had to guess he figured she was likely on Nathan's, either that or she simply didn't care.

"Well the others should be on their way here, we'll go on from there."

"Sure."

Grace and Sharky were the first ones to arrive, they were coming from Falls End and the pumpkin farm respectively. Hurk arrived later despite also being in Falls End, 'traffic' got a hold of him. Seeing Hurk with that rocket launcher of his made Nick and Kim especially uneasy, and it also made everyone else wonder why he continued to carry it around without any peggies to actually use it on.

Once everybody had arrived, Kim had made it clear that all firearms were to be kept out of the house. She didn't want to risk one going off in such close proximity to her daughter.

"So I suppose we all know why we're here?" Grace asked, the question being directed mostly at Hurk and Sharky.

"To figure out why Nate kept Faith alive?" Sharky spoke up, unsure as to why all eyes were on him and his cousin.

"Right."

"Hey c'mon, I think we're smart enough to know what's going on right now..." He continued.

"Look, there has to be a reason Nathan kept Faith alive." Kim started off, anxious to get started already. "And not only that but you guys told me he was constantly looking out for her in the jailhouse."

"We still can't rule out that she didn't use one of her manipulation tricks on him." Nick argued the same, and only plausible argument they had at the moment.

"You told me Nathan tried talking to you before he ran off with her, and besides it's been months. If she was planning something don't you think she'd have done it already?" Kim rebutted.

"She's right, If Faith really wanted to cause harm she'd have done so long ago using Nathan." Grace agreed which in turn encouraged Kim to continue.

"Also, if she really was plotting something, don't you think she'd have Nathan kill Hurk and Sharky? Possible threats and all."

"Woah, woah, hey! Now, I'm not sure just where you got these theories from Mrs. Rye, but I can assure you neither Faith nor Nate want to kill me." This time Hurk spoke, or rather shouted. He didn't believe either one would actually have any ill intent towards him or Sharky.

"The most threatening thing he told us was that if we revealed where they were to anyone that he'd shoot us." Sharky pointed out. Despite the humor in his voice, he did catch a hint of seriousness in his words.

"He was laughing so I think it was a joke, but he hardly ever joked before so it's kinda off-putting..."

"Rook was very protective of her when they were both still at the jail. If you were Jess or one of the cougars then you weren't getting anywhere near her without his say so." Sharky told the group, remembering how Nathan became a lacking presence after he spared Faith.

"Would he justify his behavior?"

Sharky scratched his chin and stood pensive for a moment. "It was the usual 'bout how he knew there was a better person within her and stuff like that. His eyes weren't glazed out so I could tell he wasn't under the influence of any bliss."

"What I'm about to say may sound crazy but... could uh.. we have been wrong about her as a person?" Kim's question received mixed responses from the group

"I don't think we're exactly around about her. Do we not know the full picture yet? Sure, I'll agree to that but wrong?" There was no doubt in Grace's mind that Faith was a terrible person for what she did, and even that description she felt was putting what she truly felt about her lightly.

"Wait... does this mean that I am perhaps one step closer to briding her?"

"Kim, I don't know where you got that from but I didn't imply that one bit..."

"I dunno honey, her actions made it clear what kind of person she is..." Nick didn't know how wrong they could be about her. Everyone who was from the Henbane spoke of all the terrible things she and her people did.

"Well then let's compare her to the other two. That's what we're here to do no?" She urged the others. She then turned her attention to Nick and Grace.

"Here we were too busy with the pregnancy and having John breathing down our necks all the damn time to even think about what was going on in the other regions."

"Sharky, you've been in the Henbane longer than any of us. How was it when Faith was around?" Kim figured that if anyone knew about Faith's tactics in the Henbane it'd be him.

"There was a shit ton of bliss, there still is a shit ton right now. Uh... She was nice, really nice. I think she liked me or something because she was super insistent I join the cult." Sharky was never interested in joining, especially not with the cult's bland music taste.

"She didn't immediately try and kill you like the John and Jacob, so I guess she had that going for her."

He wondered what she did with the twenty bucks he gave her. He did the awfully difficult math and figured it must've been enough for two six packs of beer, which was what their original purpose was.

"And, maybe it was because I'm big into doin' my own thing far away without the legal repercussions of the civilized world but, I swear I saw more of them angels than I did peggies." He figured it was that. When he was with Nathan there was peggies at every damn corner.

"Fun fact about those little buggers is that disco music would drive 'em wild! I swear it was like moths to a lamp when Grease played!"

Grace saw he was beginning to go off track. "How was the fight over there?"

Though she and Nick had both been in the Henbane while Faith was still around, the region had been nearly liberated by then. Sharky had been there before, during and after.

"It was tough. Nothing dep couldn't handle right, but it was tough..." Understanding that was probably as much as she was getting from Sharky, Kim thanked him and turned her train of thought over to the Whitetail Mountains.

"Jacob?" Kim this time asked Grace and Hurk.

"Oh, man Jacob was a real tough one. The fight over there was all in the hands of Eli and the Whitetails." Unlike his dad, Hurk had some hope the Whitetails would hold off Jacob without it costing the lives of everyone in the mountain region.

"Rook and I hit the region not long after he and Nick took down John. That was a fuckin' shift in tone." From personal experience, Grace knew that the peggies in the Holland Valley were tough but the ones in Jacob's region were even more so.

"I remember my dad used to have one of them mounted guns on the front porch of the house," Hurk recalled that it happened a week before he met Nathan. He only wished he'd been there sooner so he wouldn't to have heard his dad complaining about it and blaming him. "Well one day we wake up to find that it's gone and that same day I find out the peggies took it."

"It's a start but we need to know more about them." Kim figured the best way would be to speak to other people that lived in the other two regions. Hurk and Sharky could only provide so much information.

"So maybe she wasn't as sadistic and cruel as her brother's, don't exactly see how that makes her any better..."

"It may not make her better Nick, but it sure as hell makes her different." Grace could agree that different didn't exactly change much.

They needed more information, and Grace figured Hurk and Sharky had to know something more. Nathan had to have told them something before he took Faith out of the Valley.

"What else did he tell you guys, before he left?"

"Uh... He harbors no hard feelings towards us for not giving him a chance to defend himself?"

"Anything else, something a little more useful."

"Dep also told us she has a boyfriend, he didn't say who though." Sharky offered lamely, unsure as to whether or not it classified as something more useful.

Everyone aside from him and Hurk looked surprised. "She does? If he wasn't eventually killed at one point then he might be looking for her."

To Grace that didn't make much sense. "Think it's a peggie?"

"Well unless one of our own struck up something with her at some point, I don't see how it could be anyone else." Nick countered, finding the notion that someone from the resistance was actually dumb enough to harbor a relationship with Faith Seed.

Grace shrugged, she knew how almost every man in the Henbane, even the ones that wanted her dead, found the Bliss herald attractive.

"Isn't the cult real uptight about relationships or something like that?" Kim asked, everyone could see that something was beginning to dawn on her.

"It could be she got special treatment for being one of their leaders." Sharky had no clue how the hierarchy of The Project worked so he could only guess.

"Yeah, adding to that, Rook told me he found a note from a peggie named Holly, apparently she and John had something going on..." Grace told them.

"Wait... you don't think?"

"What? That Nathan is actually the boyfriend he was referring to?" Kim wanted to say yes, he was but there was no way of knowing unless they asked him and seeing as how they were God knows where...

"Unless Nate's got a thing for lunatics, then there's no other explanation."

"There's still the manipulation, something she was extremely good at."

"If she wanted to seduce him, don't you think she'd have done so earlier? like... before he destroyed her drug operations?"

"They did spend a lot more time together in the jail..." Hurk didn't exactly like thinking too much about that fact.

"Well duh, the cougars had made it clear that they wanted Faith dead." Sharky responded.

"Okay but back to the subject of Faith." Kim wanted to round it all up and leave it for another day, she could hear Carmina beginning to stir upstairs. "If it is Nate, then we're gonna have to come to terms that Faith ain't going nowhere no matter what we say or do..."

"We'll talk more about this later, I'm exhausted..." Nick wanted to go lay down, it had been a long day of taking care of his infant daughter and then this.

"Don't you think we should bring in more people, like Mary since Jerome is still at the Henbane?" Kim asked Grace figuring she'd agree.

"Yeah, it's important we get more opinions on the matter, preferably those that don't immediately want them both dead."

Faith was never the biggest fan of cigarettes. She hated the smell and the disgusting aftertaste wasn't something she liked either. The last time she ever touched one was close to seven years ago when all she had was that, alcohol, the needle, and Tracey's overly pessimistic attitude. Why she did so in the first place was out of a rebellious attitude that was cut short by the backhand of her father.

So when Nathan offered her one she turned it down. He simply shrugged at her rejection and went back to smoking, making sure to blow the smoke in the other direction as to avoid it hitting her face.

"Didn't know you were still a fan of those." She gave a small, awkward laugh for some odd reason. Maybe it was because he'd been so quiet so far, not something very usual of him.

Nathan slowly nodded his head but he didn't really seem to be paying much attention to her. The lack of verbal response lead Faith to believe they'd stick to silence, but after about a minute Nathan responded.

"Neither did I..." Another long drag.

She would like to tell him to stop, that smoking was terrible for his health and all it took was one for things to spiral down but she didn't feel like being a hypocrite.

Faith didn't want Nathan to misinterpret her warnings and concern as her trying to take some sort of moral high ground and point out her own past addictions. Though honestly, she didn't actually expect such an aggressive response from him, but with how stressed he'd been recently she didn't want to risk irritating him.

And, am I forgetting what he's doing currently isn't anything close to an addiction?

So she remained silent and stared at the cigar that kept growing smaller each time he placed it back between his lips. She began to take note of the way his hands trembled. It wasn't very noticeable but Faith prized herself for having keen eyes.

But that certainly caught her attention given it wasn't very cold in the room. Even in only her dress, she wasn't bothered by the chilly air conditioner.

He, on the other hand, had his jacket. Because of that, Faith thought he'd be oblivious to any cold though that didn't seem to be the case.

"Y'know, I was never actually onboard with having the title of leader of the resistance slapped on by everyone,"

Nathan spoke to her, yet his eyes remained fixated on an old Clutch Nixon poster that had been hastily stapled to the wall. "I always felt it only painted a bigger target on my back than the one I already had."

"What was I to do honestly? Say 'no, I don't want this'? It wasn't gonna work like that. I had a job to do, whether I liked it or not..."

He paused and gave her a side glance as if to make sure she was still listening. Faith moved closer and took his trembling hand in hers to reassure him that she still was.

Nathan smiled at her softly, then took another drag of the cigarette. "Now, I didn't actually make many particularly important decisions, thankfully. No, I was... I don't even know what I was!"

"Nate, I know I asked this once but... If they offer you a place with them again, will you accept?" Faith didn't like having him stop talking, especially when he was opening up to her which he rarely did, but she just had to know.

She had to make sure.

He stared at her, the dim lighting of the room and the dark bags under his eyes made his expression indiscernible.

That question was one he asked himself day after day, night after night. If, and only if, he was to be forgiven by the resistance, would he take arms again and join once more? The offer was there already, but at the cost of losing Faith.

Part of him wanted to say yes, that he would for a chance to reconcile and fix things with his friends.

The more sane side of him already knew the answer: he wouldn't take the offer. Never in a million years would he let the thought of leaving her become reality.

C'mon Nate, just give her the damn answer... He urged himself, Now granted, it's not particularly the one you really want, but it's the one she wants.

"I uh... I don't know." He responded. "I honestly don't..."

Faith wasn't much surprised by his answer, but she was secretly relieved by it. The relief came from the fear that if he cleared his name, he'd suggest they go their separate ways. It also came from a very selfish part of her that wanted Nathan to leave everything behind and escape Hope County with her, like she constantly daydreamed about.

"I mean, as much as I'd like to, you're what's most important to me right now."

"I am?" Hearing him say those words to her helped alleviate her worries. There was no double meaning, no selfishness, he didn't expect anything from her in return.

Nathan nodded and flicked the now finished cigar to the floor and stepped on it with his boot. "Because even if I did set things straight with the county, a second chance would only apply for me and not you..."

"You'd still have to keep hiding and that's not what I want for you, not anymore. My main goal is and has always been to get you out of Hope County, that's it."

How could someone be so selfless? Everyone turned their backs on him, and that deeply hurt Nathan. Despite there being an opportunity to mend that he'd rather continue the struggle, just to grant her a shot at a normal life outside of the county. A life Faith knew she wanted to spend with only him.

"Nathan but what about your job and your friends-"

"Look, we'll worry about that when the time comes." Nathan cut her off, feeling that now wasn't the time to be overthinking such things. "And being the leader of the resistance is very different from what my actual job was."

"Yeah, you're right." Faith figured it was best they changed the subject, she could see how agitated Nathan was for, some odd reason. "Anyways..."

"Feeling better?"

Throughout the night he'd wake up groaning in pain and startling her to death. Faith didn't know what to do, they were out of painkillers and she didn't exactly want to approach him seeing as how he slept with his gun in his hand. The last thing she wanted was to startle him while he slept and end up getting shot.

"Nope, everything still hurts real bad. I'm also getting this annoying itch in my thigh where the scar is." He was also having very vivid nightmares, but those were so common he'd be more concerned if they suddenly stopped occurring.

"You want to go back to sleep?"

"Nah, I think I need to move around a little more."

Nathan didn't like feeling useless, especially not in the situation he and Faith currently found themselves in. As much as he loved feeling her body comfortably wrapped around his, Nathan was staring to become anxious now that he wasn't up and about.

"Need help?" Faith offered, finding humor in the prospect of mothering him around while he recuperated.

"Don't really think I'll have a choice will I?"

She eagerly shook her head and responded."I don't think so!"

Nathan laughed, maybe being helped around wouldn't be that bad. Not when he had the love of his life to help him. "I love you."

"I love you too."

He pulled her in for a passionate kiss, letting their hands traverse all over their bodies. Once they were both out of breath did they separate.

Faith giggled then stood pensive, lightly tapping her chin with her index finger. A smile grew wider on her face.

"By the way are you ticklish?"

Nathan met her cute and innocent smirk with a half-hearted glare. He understood well enough why she asked that. It wasn't going to work.

"I am, but don't even start."

AN: Does this count as the end of December? Oh well, it's the last one before the holidays. The discussion about Faith isn't over yet, and other characters will be eventually brought into it. This one might've not hit the mark but I'll be fleshing it out more as the story continues

Also figured I'd make Sharky less Hurk-ish in his personality, if only by a little bit.

Recently tried out the DLCs for FC5, really thankful I only paid half of the Season Pass price for underwhelming content. Then again, I didn't really expect high quality stuff when one of the names is 'Dead Living Zombies' and the other's secondary protagonist is Hurk.

That zombie one feels like something straight out of the Arcade.

Anyways, personal disdain for lackluster post-game content aside, I'll see you next month!