A/N: Hello and welcome to another controversial Crazy Ex-Girlfriend pairing! On today's menu is Trent/Nathaniel! Some things are shifted around from canon as a matter of course. Notably, we pretty much ignore most of season 4, and Trent does somewhat lose interest in Rebecca. Chapters will be short and uploaded basically willy-nilly. Please feel free to leave ideas in the reviews! Thank you so much!

After Rebecca had pled guilty and insisted on going to jail, Nathaniel had decided he was done. On a whim, he visited Trent in the hospital. He asked the comatose man questions: What had either of them seen in Rebecca? Why, and how, had Trent gotten himself hired at Nathaniel's party, with so many witnesses, rather than just find Nathaniel somewhere private, then kill him that way and send Rebecca proof of death? How badly had their breakup gone for Trent to resort to attempted murder?

Trent, of course, answered none of these questions. But Nathaniel continued to visit him, and spoke to him about other things in his life. It was nice having someone to talk to, even someone who couldn't respond back.

In six weeks, when Paula came to see Trent, Nathaniel was already there and sent her away when she got confrontational, which was practically the second she walked in the door. The jail was releasing Rebecca anyway and surely Paula and her other friends could convince her she wasn't doing anyone any good just rotting in there feeling sorry for herself. Paula gave Nathaniel an odd look, but left on threat of being fired.

It had become a ritual for Nathaniel, coming to the hospital straight after work. Sometimes he brought his work with him; he set up his laptop and worked on cases at Trent's bedside. He vented about clients, not using names of course, because he wasn't sure how much a comatose patient could understand or remember, and he didn't want to risk breaching confidentiality. Sometimes he just talked, asked hypothetical questions, occasionally even cried over his failed relationships with both Rebecca and Mona. He half-expected Trent to spontaneously wake up just to tell him to shut up already, but it didn't happen.

"I think she enjoys the chase more than she enjoys having an actual relationship," Nathaniel was saying one day. He was sitting in his usual chair, his hand gently covering Trent's. Commiserating, in his own way. "As her boss, I was inappropriate and seemingly unattainable, especially since she was engaged to another man. And that other man, she had been chasing for years, according to one of his high school acquaintances who works in the office. When we were a couple, there was always one thing or another with her, but after Mona and I got together and I started sleeping with her behind Mona's back, things couldn't have been better between us. Then she apparently put out a hit on Mona, and you— I don't know what the hell happened with you, but suddenly you were together or back together, and then you weren't, and then she pushed you off my roof, claiming she was saving my life?"

Trent's heart had skipped a beat when Nathaniel had mentioned him. Nathaniel's lips parted. So Trent could hear him. Or maybe it was a coincidence? Should he call the nurse? But if Trent was just playing comatose, he wouldn't want his cover blown, and Nathaniel had become somewhat attached to him by now.

"I'm past it, man," he assured Trent. "I didn't even visit her in jail after she pled guilty against my advice. And the judge's. And the prosecutor's. I'm sure you had your reasons, if it's true."