Disclaimer: I don't own anything, everything belongs to Naghty Dog, Sony and other respective owners.
I am not an English-speaker, so if there are mistakes, forgive me, I am doing my best to avoid them.
Moving on several meters to a hiding place behind bushes surrounding the flood waters area with unconscious Nate was a task much more difficult, than she could imagine. Elena had an impression that gravity's level exceeded all acceptable norms, and her husband was literally pulled into the ground. Nate's shoes were sinking in the mud and he kept slipping out of her hands, leaning on his knees. When she finally dragged him behind thicket she knelt over a knocked log and gently lowered Nate on the ground level, shifting him onto his left side.
Elena took a deep breath and rubbed her arms, looking around. They were completely invisible from the outside and could sit here safely, at least for some time. After a while she found a handkerchief in her pockets and sat on the ground next to Nate's head, lifting it gently and placing it on her thigh.
She looked at her husband's battered face, brushing away single strands of wet, dark hair. Though his eyes remained closed, his chest was slowly rising and falling. She was overjoyed that he was still alive, but at the same time she couldn't chase away the grief she felt for him throughout last days. After all it was a sense of matrimonial duty that she ever decided to find him. She didn't forgive him yet, and at that moment she couldn't even imagine herself doing so.
These thoughts didn't took her attention for long, because right then, when she was wiping blood from Nate's face and starting cleaning a wound on his forehead, she felt honest relief.
About fifteen minutes passed when she finally noticed Nate squeezing his eyes and letting out a deep sigh, then turning his head slightly up. He started regaining consciousness. She insured his body as he began to make slightly moves; he looked like if he was waking up from a deep sleep on a Sunday morning after a crazy, all-night party. Eventually he slowly opened his eyes.
They looked at each other. Nate blinked several times, his eyes widened.
"Elena...?" whispered, clearly shocked, with a hoarse voice.
"I'm here" she said, touching his temple and cheek with tips of her fingers. Without removing his head from Elena's thighs Nate shifted fully onto his back, loudly letting the air out from his lungs and looking around.
"Crap... where am I?" he asked hesitantly, touching the earth beneath him with a hand. "I died and by sheer fluke got to paradise...?"
Elena chuckled softly, stopping a gust of laughter.
"Blarneying even with a hole in his head… so I am sure you're all right" she said, smiling. "You are north of the colony. I found you in this state, unconscious... wounded" she wiped one more drop of blood that seeped from the wound. The touch of her fingers reminded him of his injury; he closed his eyes and hissed, violently shaking his head.
"Auu...! Shit, that hurts!"
"Hey, don't move" Elena said firmly, immobilizing his head with a hand. "You hurt yourself horribly. What happened? And where is Sam?"
"Hang on..." Nate sighed, "How the hell did you get there?"
"No," she interrupted, turning a deaf ear to his words, "I'm asking questions now, Nate."
Nate blew his resistance off, then clenched his teeth and rose himself with Elena's help to a sitting position. When he leaned back against the log, Elena observed him closely. His face show the evidence of intense thinking about something, scanning the memory and attempting to reconstruct past events, which his brain registered before losing consciousness. Seconds later his bright blue eyes overflowed with an unspeakable sadness, even anger.
"Nate…" she broke the silence, "What the hell happened?"
They sat for a while next to each other. Elena waited patiently, clasping a blood-stained handkerchief in her hand. Finally Nate lifted his head up and stared blankly ahead.
"He lied to me" he started quietly. "Sam made up the whole story about debt. There was actually no ransom to be paid to Alcazar… I mean the guy, who helped him escape. It turned out that he's been dead from half a year... and Sam has been free for two years now, but he didn't get through to me. He got pulled out of jail by Rafe... one of my former associates..."
As he was speaking, Nate raised his hand to his forehead, but Elena was faster and slapped him on the top his dirty hand.
"Don't touch!" she hissed, then rose from her knees and sat on the log to get better access to Nate's forehead. "I'm not finished yet" said as she leaned towards him, wiping gently his wound. "How did you do this to yourself, anyway?"
"...I fell off the cliff."
"The cliff?!" her eyes popped with surprise and Elena instinctively glanced in its direction, but the forest grew so thick that the cliff was completely undetectable. She remembered, however, how high it was.
"I think I hit... the cliff" Nate said, making a strange move against his face with his hand. "That son of a bitch Rafe was about to shoot me and Sam covered me with his body... probably got hit anyway. I lost my balance and fell... Good God, it hurts like hell..." he hissed, grabbing at his temple.
Elena remained silent, cleansing his wound. She got confused; realized that the sound of one of the two gunshots she had heard in the forest came from the gun aimed straight at her husband. Perhaps a far cry, that she had heard back then, was Nate's...
"Elena..." Nate suddenly began, looking up at her tentatively. "Why are you here? How did you find me? I..." hesitated for a moment, regarding her face carefully, "I thought that you gave up on me."
I still didn't make my mind up, Elena thought as she watched Nate for a few moments in silence, trying to guess emotions that tormented him. Did he expected that she would move out? Was he considering a divorce? Or maybe he decided to let things happen and try to unscrew everything later? Though Nate's face clearly indicated that he had a huge sense of guilt, she realized that this conversation can't wait any longer.
"Nate" she said firmly. He looked at her with sad and uncertain gaze. Like a kid who messed things up and was aware that he will have to suffer the consequences for his actions.
"We can't live like that anymore. If we are to stay together..." she paused, concentrating on choosing most appropriate words, not wanting to be misunderstood. Right now she couldn't be certain of anything. "…if we are to give ourselves one more chance... you can't hide anything from me. You have to tell me everything. Everything that you've been hiding so far."
Nate broke eye contact, looking at the ground again. He swallowed.
"You're sure you wanna know... everything about me?" he asked after a brief moment, toying with his wedding ring and emphasizing the word 'everything'. Elena could feel nervousness and discomfort in his movements, but didn't hesitate for a second. He made her wait way too long, already.
"Everything" she admitted. "And for God's sake, don't you dare omitting any other of your living siblings, cousins or grandparents..."
They both laughed. Elena watched her husband, waiting to hear one of his smart-ass responses, but didn't got any. Instead, Nate leaned back against the log, bending his left leg at the knee. He clenched his left hand hard into a fist and bit his lip, staring absentmindedly into space in front of him.
"Well" he sighed, "If you're sure you want to hear this… but I truly don't know where to begin with..."
"If I were you, I would simply start from the beginning" Elena advised him quietly.
Nate chucked sadly, staring at the ground.
"The beginning, huh…?"
Elena felt both anxiety and excitement in anticipation of what her husband was about to confess. She sensed that she will probably hear something she totally didn't expect.
She wondered whether after hearing all that he was about to tell her, she will still be able to remain by his side as his wife...
"Elena... Drake isn't my real name. I was born as Nathan Morgan."