Warnings: None.
Spoilers: None, really
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Notes: Olive visits Rachel. Set when the characters are 25ish.
The sun was warm on his face, the faintest of breezes ruffling through his short hair. He closed his eyes and lifted his face towards the sun. The shouts and laughter of kids playing drifted over to him and it was a far more soothing sound than he ever would have imagined. He stretched his legs out and laid his arm along the back of the bench behind her and tried to enjoy the day instead of soaking up her pain.
She liked hurting herself. He'd figured out when they were kids that she did it because sometimes she couldn't feel anything at all and was desperate for any sort of sensation. They healed quickly and rarely scarred so it was easy enough to hide from their instructors, the people who called themselves caregivers with straight faces. When she remembered that it hurt him too she would stop but sometimes it was hard for her to remember. Sometimes the only thing she could feel was him and she looked at him with hateful eyes and he let her hurt him until it hurt her and he would hold her until she stopped crying.
The little dark-haired girl shrieked and giggled. She was bigger now, growing quickly and he could tell she was going to be tall and skinny. She ran back to her mother and flung her arms around the blond woman's neck. He and Olive sat on a bench in the park near the playground, a young couple enjoying lunch outside before hearing back to boring cooperate jobs. Her eyes never left the blond woman and her darker haired daughter, sandwich untouched on the bench beside her.
He thought for a while that she'd out grown out of it like she'd out grown biting her fingernails, but she'd just changed. She looked at pictures of Peter, Dr. Bishop, her parents and drowned herself in misery. She stalked the sister she wasn't supposed to remember, the one who hadn't been useful and so had been abandoned. Personally, Nick thought she got the better deal but he kept that thought to himself. Next to him Olive sighed and brushed imaginary crumbs from her lap and stood up, walked away without a word. He glanced at Rachel and Ella one last time and then followed her.