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Chapter 5—

"I still can't believe that I agreed to this," Natalie was busy mumbling to herself. "And why do I always get blamed for everything? One of these days I'm going to start believing the propaganda and declare myself the next coming of the Antichrist …"

"What are you carrying on about?" Michael asked, watching with a bemused expression while Natalie attempted to lug an overfilled box full of clothes up to their newly acquired apartment.

"Oh, nothing," she grunted. "Do me a favor—you've got manly muscles; you lug this thing upstairs. I'm obviously not making much progress with it."

Natalie scowled when he picked up the box as though it were as light as a feather.

"Show off!" she called after him before following him upstairs.

Once Michael had safely placed her box of clothes into her newly claimed room, he turned around and faced the reluctantly grateful red-head.

"I gather you had a confrontation of sorts today?" he said.

"Yup," she nodded in confirmation. "It's happening with alarmingly frequency these days." When she saw his look of commiseration, she realized. "You two? Who bitched you out."

"Well, I'm not so sure I'd call it 'bitching', per say … but accusatory tones were used in abundance."

"Marcie," Natalie gathered. "You know, I thought I heard high-pitched shrieking earlier, but I put it down to an animal being slaughtered in a ritualistic Satanic sacrifice of sorts. But it was Marcie, huh?"

Michael glared, not finding Natalie's sarcasm the least bit amusing.

"Oh come on, Mikey!" she exclaimed. "You can see where I might get confused." Apparently Michael could see no such thing. "Okay, fine. I apologize. You can tell me about it … if you'd like."

Michael ran a hand through his dark hair and then promptly plopped down on Natalie's new, never-been-slept-in-before bed. Then he launched into his sad (more like hilarious, in Natalie's opinion) story.

"She hit you?" Natalie asked in delight. "How hard? Did she leave a mark? Where did she hit you?"

"Try and keep your concern under control," he drolly commented.

"I don't understand why she was mad with you to begin with. How does your moving out of the hotel effect her in any way?"

"Ironically enough, she's jealous."

"Of what?" Natalie asked confusedly. Then her eyes lit up in recognition. "Of me? Oh, now I know she's delusional. I happen to think I'm an amazing and truly wonderful person, but realistically—who would be jealous of me? I spent the better part of a year humiliating myself, as numerous people have recently told me, and now I somehow got suckered into living with … of all the people in the world … you. No offence or anything," she off-handedly threw in.

"None taken," he muttered. "Actually, the whole encounter was … bizarre."

"Well, Marcie is bizarre in general."

"Natalie …" came the warning glare.

"Oh, all right. You're not yet to the point where you can insult your ex. It's okay—you'll get there soon enough."

"You're insulting John now, are you?"

"Oh yes," she vehemently nodded her head. "After that blow-up at the police station, I've taken to referring to him as McIdiot. Not to his face, of course—although if he keeps up with the tortured, 'please-don't-hate-me-Natalie-I'm-just-a-confused-emotionally-unstable-moron' looks, then I will start calling him McIdiot to his face. Rex suggested a truly brilliant nickname the other day, but well … it was kind of indecent … and seeing as how John is your brother, I'll spare you."

"Your kindness knows no bounds," Michael sarcastically rolled his eyes.

"I know," she brightly smiled. "Are you okay though? About Marcie?"

He did a double take at her sudden bout of concern. "No, I'm fine," he quickly asserted. "Everything is peachy."

"You're a horrible liar. I know you still have feelings for Marcie. You're far too obvious, Michael. There's no subtlety to you … now, if Marcie wasn't such a simpering, blind idiot, she'd have seen this ages ago and you two would be together."

"Forgive me for interrupting your little monologue," Michael interjected, "but didn't the two of us—that is to say, you and I—make a deal to move on once and for all from Marcie and John … respectively, of course?"

"Yes."

"So then why do you seem to be championing me and Marcie?"

"Trust me, I'm doing no such thing. I'm just merely pointing out a simple fact. You're an obvious idiot. And Marcie is a clueless idiot. Match made in Heaven, really."

"Do you realize that the same applies to you and John?"

"Are you calling your own brother a clueless idiot?" Natalie jabbed.

"And for good measure, I'm calling you an obvious idiot," he confirmed. "You know, Natalie—a month ago, I never would have thought the two of us had so much in common."

"Get out of my room, McBain," Natalie shooed him out, laughing all the while.

"You never told me who your confrontation was with," Michael said to Natalie later that night.

"You're right. I didn't."

"Don't attempt to play coy—you're not the least bit effective at it."

"Oh fine!" Natalie exclaimed. "It was Nora."

"Nora?" Michael repeated, as though he couldn't grasp the concept. "Why would she have a problem with you?"

"Oh, she was sticking up for her best gal-pal, is all," Natalie shrugged it off. "But I don't know … after some consideration, I can give Nora a bit of a free-pass. You know, she kind of married a gay psychopathic murderer. She's not exactly the most rational of people these days."

"But what was the topic of conversation?" Michael asked, still in a state of confusion. "I can't think how you and I moving in together has any effect on Evangeline. Wouldn't that be a good thing for her?"

"You would think so, wouldn't you?" Natalie said flippantly. "Apparently Nora and Evangeline operate on some kind of other plane of existence. It's good to know that you agree with me, though."

"Now, I didn't say that," Michael was quick to contradict. "Knowing you, there were nasty words flung."

"I don't fling nasty words unless I am provoked. Oh, look, the only thing that happened was that Nora felt as though she owed it to the whole of humanity to make sure that I wasn't moving in with you in some desperate bid to nab McIdiot all to myself. The general thinking, apparently, is that I'm a manipulative shrew and am using, poor Clueless Mikey to further my plans for world domination."

"Yes, Natalie—that is exactly what everyone thinks," Michael chuckled, despite himself. Then he realized something. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "I'm not clueless!"

"But the general population seems to think you are," she sweetly pointed out. "You know—susceptible to my evil charms." She paused to consider. "Come to think of it, that wasn't as comforting as it sounded in my head."

"It never is, is it?"

"Oh, Michael, don't go all introspective on me. Do you know what I've realized? This is all we ever talk about—our various confrontations and relationship problems. That's going to get boring after awhile, don't you agree? Don't you have any interesting stories? You're a doctor, after all."

Michael thought about it for a minute. He thought about it for a lot longer than a minute. He thought about it deeply. Very deeply.

"You're pathetic," Natalie finally decided. "A sad excuse for a doctor. I know that you see interesting things every day. People come in the hospital doors and present you with cool stuff all the time. Like … pus-filled boils or really nasty rashes? Don't you get to solve the occasional rare-disease case?"

"Well, I just can't think of anything that interesting at the moment," Michael admitted. "Besides which, seeing pus-filled boils and really nasty rashes isn't exactly as interesting as you might think. And no, I don't get to solve the occasional rare-disease case. There are people called diagnosticians who do that."

"Why didn't you become one of those then?"

"Because I don't have any interest in that field!" Michael declared. "Why are you asking so many questions anyway? You've never been this interested in me before."

"Now, that simply isn't true, Mikey," she teased. "You're truly a fascinating specimen of the human variety. Why, your very presence leaves me in shock and complete awe. It's like there's this bright halo around you that positively lights up your gorgeous, ickle face." At this last part, she pinched his cheek playfully. "Get over yourself, Michael. We don't have a t.v. yet … I'm just trying to fill in some time before I head off to bed."

"Haven't you ever heard of a book?" he sulked.

"You know," she ignored him, "I think we're going to have fun … you and I. As long as you don't have a penchant for walking around naked. You don't, do you? Because I don't really think I'd enjoy living with an exhibitionist."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Michael never knew how true that statement would end up being.

TBC