They lingered over the table, working the kiss into something more like...well, like a kiss, and less like a sloppy face-mash. Brena's left shoulder advanced from a dull ache to a sharp pain, and Nick's ribs argued the merits of keeping the edge of the table wedged into them, but neither of them were willing to be the first to break away. 'She still tastes like honey,' Nick mused, 'And like coffee, too. I remember that coffee from Magee...she brought it in all the time.'
Brena didn't know she could smile and kiss someone at the same time; while the expression and motion together didn't feel awkward to her, she wasn't sure they wouldn't feel awkward to Nick. Everything suddenly seemed familiar and warm to her; his cologne was the same one he wore so many times at the hospital; all deep reassurance and something rich and thick she felt she could roll herself into and not let go of. Her body decided that 'letting go' was going to be a decision made solely by her left shoulder, and so it gave way, pitching her sharply down and away from him, though she tried desperately to push herself back up to him, to not make him feel she'd moved away out of a sudden change of heart.
Expecting to find any number of emotions floating in Nick's eyes when she looked up, and hopeful they'd be positive, she found to her surprise that his eyes were closed, his face blank and tilted down toward the table, the slightest hitch in his breathing, and an unsettling, complete stillness in the rest of his body. As she'd done so many times before, Brena simply waited for him to speak.
"I never...moved on, Bren."
Quietly adjusting herself back into the booth, bringing her hands over his, Brena wanted to be reassuring without being overbearing. "I just thought...Nick...now I know things are-"
"I never moved on, Brena," More forceful this time, and louder, Nick was determined to say what he needed to, before he lost his nerve. "The day I left Magee, I asked the cab driver to find you, but I didn't know how to fuckin' find you. Can you believe it? Six fuckin' months together, and I didn't know your last name, to tell a driver, 'Brena So-and-So, it's a brownstone by a bakery and a florist.' I hate when catering sets up gingersnaps on the buffet line, because it kinda smells like you, but it's not enough like you. I hate the shit I did...do...to try to find you." There, Nick paused, and Brena watched his face pale, as though he was struggling with a secret undeserving of the luxury. Gagging on the words, he tried to explain, "Brena, the shit I do...you're gonna fuckin' hate me. You remember what Stephen did...tried to do. I'm like that, anymore. I'm shit." 'And here it goes. It went. Goodbye. At least I got to kiss her before I tell her I'm fuckin' trash. She trusted me with those quilts, and look what I did. And I have to tell her. I mean, I don't have to tell her, but I have to tell her.'
"No, Nick. Not at all. I refuse to believe I would hate you, or that you could be anything like that awful man. Stubborn, yes, but what's the worst you could have done to find me? Groused at a taxi driver? Been surly at an airport? Made an irritable phone call or two?" Brena smiled and rubbed her thumbs over the backs of his hands, trying to will away the ugly concern that clouded Nick's face. It didn't work, and Brena's smile slowly faded when Nick had no reaction at all to her words. "Nick? Talk to me. Something's not sitting right with you."
"Brena, I don't mean find you, I knew where you were. I mean, I didn't know where you were, like, where you really lived and shit, but you were here. Philadelphia. I at least had a place to start, you know? I mean find you." Louder and louder as he pushed on, Nick knew he was beginning to attract attention to himself, and he didn't care.
"I don't understand," Brena crimped her eyebrows together; try as she might, she couldn't make sense of Nick's words. Noticing that a great many of the patrons were still cued in to Nick due to his volume, Brena tightened her hands around his as firmly as she could, and tried again, "Here, listen. I'm willing to bet you have to leave tomorrow, or perform, or any number of things that will make this impossible. But...I do want…I mean, can we..." Brena trailed off and gulped at the air, looking around the room for inspiration and finding none coming. "Can we go back to the brownstone? When you were at Magee, I...uh, I always wanted you to see it. Deaglan would have wanted it, too."
Slowly, cautiously, Nick slid from the booth, Brena matching him in pace as they walked to the door. 'He agreed. Okay. Let's just get to the door, and get out. Something's off about him right now, and it doesn't help that he got hit in the head. Again.' Brena had managed to snag a decent parking spot, and it was a short walk to what was left of her SUV. She was eminently relieved that he'd have leg room, but was equally chagrined that he'd have to submit to being driven in what was essentially a vehicle held together by good luck and duct tape. Nick seemed oblivious to the condition of the SUV, and let himself in the passenger side as though he was in a trance. Sighing, Brena walked around to the driver's side and prayed for luck with the ignition.
Normally, Brena would have walked the few blocks to McCaffrey's, but the weather was cold, it was late, and she thought she'd be driving Meredith home – though she now had no idea where her friend went – so she was willing to put up with the annoyance of her vehicle. Now, Brena was glad she drove; the SUV cut the time spent in suddenly awkward silence with Nick down to a few minutes, instead of what would have been several times that by foot. Pulling into her spot in front of the bakery and her brownstone, Brena cut the ignition and unbuckled her seatbelt, waiting for Nick to do the same. He seemed lost, looking around like he wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up there. Sighing, and resigning herself to playing a role she'd long ago given up – that of caretaker – Brena leaned over and pressed the latch on Nick's seatbelt, easing it across his lap. The maneuver required her to nearly lay across him to prevent the belt from snapping up into his face, and he clutched her tightly, as though he thought she appeared out of thin air and might vaporize again if he let go.
"Nick, come on. Let's go inside. It's cold out here," Looking past him and out the window, she struggled, "I just want you to see it. You don't have to stay after, if you don't want to." She pushed out of his grasp and opened her door, closing it firmly as she left the SUV. Waiting on her front stoop without looking back, Brena jumbled her keys together. 'I can't make him come in. I can't figure him out if he won't talk. I have no idea what to do. Uncle D, where are you when I need you?'
'Is she asking me to stay? I wanna stay, but is she gonna want that after we talk? I shouldn't tell her anything. No, fuck it, I'm not gonna tell her anything. She has no idea what I was really doing. I get a free pass with her, and I'm gonna keep it that way. I can't keep it that way. I have to tell her about the quilt.' Shaking his head harshly, Nick left the SUV and joined Brena at her door, reaching for her hand and kissing the top of her head while she organized her keys.
The interior of Brena's brownstone was exactly like what Nick had expected and nothing like what Nick had expected. He recognized the warm-colored kitchen counter and antique Wedgwood, though the toaster oven made no sense in contrast. Hazel's quilts were laid neatly over every couch and armchair – except the one heaped in a corner, which Nick found odd. Brena hadn't cleared any of Deaglan's books off of the end tables; Nick wasn't surprised by that – his death was still too raw, but the odd piles they were in made no sense, given how organized she kept the room at the hospital. The scent, though – oh, the scent. Ginger, everywhere, and almonds, and the smoky undertone that Nick now learned came from a bottle of oil with a carmine-colored label printed with Chinese script. He remembered Brena's story about taking Deaglan to the Chinatown neighborhood of Philadelphia for his birthday, and wondered if it was something she'd picked up during that visit, but didn't want to pry – or unearth any more sorrow than was necessary.
Once the tour was over, she and Nick returned to the parlor, with Brena starting a crackling fire in the fireplace and Nick marveling at how she maneuvered the chains and pulls of the damper before moving to the kitchen. Brena couldn't help but laugh; to her it was second nature, a simple game of adjustments and shifts until things worked just-so. To Nick, it was far too complicated and required manipulations too delicate for his clumsy hands. He huddled in towards the flames, unsure of where to sit, and shifted from foot to foot, waiting.
"Wine?" Brena had to shout a bit to be heard across the span of the brownstone, "Actually, no. Let's be properly Irish and celebrate friends and family tonight. Whiskey! I've got so many bottles; they're all Deaglan's and Hazel's and God knows who else, and what better time to open them than now?"
For a fraction of a second, Nick cringed – Claudio had been adamant that Nick curb his drinking; Talent Relations had been far more than adamant, but then he figured Brena wouldn't let him get so deep into a bottle that he'd be a wreck in the morning. "Friends and family?" 'She was so...frustrated...with me, in the car, but she sounds so happy now. What changed? And am I gonna ask?'
"Well, yes. Through serendipity or plotting, you're back in my life as of tonight. And for better or worse, we're in my family home tonight. So, yes, tonight, to friends and family." Walking cautiously so as not to spill, and holding a long, silver tray, Brena moved from the kitchen to the parlor, where she found Nick standing, still looking into the fire. She placed the tray on the coffee table and filled a tumbler to hand to him before filling one for herself, gently tapping the edge of her glass against his and staring in to the fire along with him.
"Just tonight, Bren?" Nick's voice came out far more unsure than Brena expected, and she wasn't sure how to answer him.
'What on earth is he looking for? He's leaving, I'm sure, in the next few days. In the morning, even. Does he mean he'd rather stay here than whatever hotel he's at? Of course, that's fine, I've got extra bedrooms. That must be what he means. Good grief, Brena, you haven't even had a proper conversation with the man and here you are, letting your imagination run off and leave your common sense upside down.' "Nick," Brena paused, and looked around. The sofa was too far back from the fireplace, which they'd both gravitated toward. The floor was, well, a floor – wooden, cold, and uncomfortable. "Here, hold this for a second." She passed her tumbler to him and scuttled around the room, gathering quilts – all but the one that was heaped in the corner of the parlor. Piling them on the floor, fussing and fluffing at them, Brena toed off her shoes before stepping into the pile of fabric, sitting down, and gesturing for her drink. "Come on. Shoes off, and sit with me for a while. This is a bit like the PT room, but-"
"Drinks instead of cake." Nick smiled wanly, and passed Brena's drink down to her before kicking off his shoes and stepping gingerly onto the quilts. 'Don't fuck up, Nemeth, don't fuckin' rip another quilt. You gotta tell her. You said you weren't gonna tell her, maybe don't tell her how...er, why...but you gotta tell her.' He sipped at his drink, sat down, and watched Brena out of the corner of his eye, wondering where on earth to begin.
Somehow, Brena always knew how to make it easy for him. She might not always have understood what he told her, or read the signals that he sent, but she always managed to give him the right opening at the right time.
"O'Keefe."
Looking at Brena like she'd just babbled out nonsense syllables, Nick waited for her to go on. "You said we spent six months together and you didn't know my last name. Yours is Nemeth – or at least, I hope it is and that's not a stage name – and mine is O'Keefe. I don't understand why you were upset about the cookies, though. You'd only ever had the cake I made for Deaglan's birthday, and a cinnamon roll from the bakery. I don't think I ever brought cookies."
"Because – and this is gonna sound dumb – well, maybe it won't, but the first night I was there, that quilt you gave me smelled like you. Ginger. Kinda smoky, too, but a lot like ginger. And it was just nice, you know? It was warm, and it wasn't a shitty hospital blanket. So...when catering puts out those crappy little cookies that sorta smell like ginger, it's like, 'Oh, gee, hey, remember that person who was nice to you, cared about you, didn't know you and didn't even have to do that shit for you, but then I fucked up and didn't -" Nick cut himself off, hard, and drank to occupy his mouth.
"Didn't what, mo trodaire?" Brena was quiet, and leaned in toward Nick, hoping he was close to explaining whatever it was that he couldn't make sense of at the cafe.
"I didn't tell you!" Nick fairly exploded; his whiskey splashed back and forth in his tumbler and he slammed it back in a single swallow. Brena cringed; she knew it wasn't a good idea to drink that much that fast, and this was the type of alcohol that didn't come with a 'proof' printed on the label – only a vintage. Thumping his tumbler down on the floor, Nick snatched Brena's from her hands, put it heavily on the coffee table, and held her firmly by the shoulders. "I – no, we – fuckin' circled around shit for so long, Bren. I always had women like Alison. Loud. Bitchy. They knew who I was; I knew what they were. Whatever they wanted, they got. But you, you didn't fuckin' know, or care, who I was, and that was...it was…." Nick had started to sway a bit, and Brena reached around his arms to hold his shoulders, trying to keep him still.
"Here, Nick. Let's slow down a bit," Brena was unsure of what was going on, had no idea what she could do about it, and knew Nick had even less of a grasp on things than she did, "You're right, I didn't know who you were, and in most ways I still don't. To me, it didn't matter. It still doesn't. But I don't understand, what do you mean we circled around-"
"This!" Nick roared, and dragged Brena up into another kiss, managing to lift her entirely off the quilt and up onto her knees, before pushing her roughly away and dropping her down. "And this!" Less loud, he pulled her up again, also with less force, vaguely realizing he didn't need to manhandle her to make his point, before lowering her back to the quilt. "And, this," quietly now, he spoke, brushing her snarled hair gently out of her face before he leaned down to kiss her, this time not moving her from where she sat. She was stunned, barely moving, not knowing what to do or how to interpret what he'd done, hovering somewhere in the no-man's-land of realizing he was too lost in the immediate onset of his drunkenness to know what he was doing, being a bit afraid of the size imbalance between them, and understanding what he meant – they'd both cared for each other in ways that flew past roommate and friend, and were trying to find a sensible way, in the midst of a nonsensical night, to acknowledge those feelings.
Brena was wide-eyed when Nick finally backed away enough to get a clear look at her, and he felt sick at what he'd done. He hadn't meant to scare her, he didn't want to hurt her, and he knew he'd just treated her the way he'd treated each and every one of the women he met and used after his stay at the hospital but before this strange and wonderful night, the ones who he thought might convince him, momentarily, that he hadn't lost Brena. The ones who, if Nick squinted hard enough, he could imagine as Brena next to him in bed, until they wheezed, or retched, and the illusion broke, turning back into whatever drug-sick doppelganger he'd dragged back to his hotel room that evening.
"Jesus," Nick breathed out, trying to will his stomach back down to a proper, less nauseated position, "Shit, Brena, I'm sorry, that was too-"
"Nick?" Brena whispered, reaching up toward his face, but stopping halfway there, unsure of where to safely put her hand. "I understand. I should have heard you when we fell asleep together before Halloween, or went to the roof for fireworks. When we had dinner in the cafeteria and you let me talk and you listened. I should have heard you when you...when you stayed with me as Deaglan passed. I didn't hear you, then. But, now-"
Deciding Nick's hand would be a safe option, Brena gently grasped at it and leaned up into a kiss of her own, much more easy and relaxed than any of Nick's attempts that night, and Nick responded gently in kind. "There," Brena breathed against his lips, "That's better. Slow down a bit. You've not made me hate you. And we've got all night to sort things out. More than all night, if you want, and it seems we've finished circling around things. I'm not of a mind to have you leave, either. You don't have to keep looking, mo trodaire. As I've said, you've found me."
Nick cringed, and backed Brena off of him, gesturing for her to refill his tumbler. Confused, she did, and then topped off her own. "I...uh...I should just tell you. I fucked up, Bren. I don't wanna take up your evening, I'm just gonna say it and then go, because you aren't gonna want me to stay." Brena barely opened her mouth to speak, but Nick held up his hand and she stopped. "Look. I missed you. I mean, I really fuckin' missed you. I started drinkin', and kept drinkin', and then I was really drinkin', and then I was tryin' to...I mean..." Nick sighed and raked a hand through his hair, forcing himself to look at Brena. "I was looking for you, because you weren't there. I started pickin' up women who looked like you." Brena's face contorted, and Nick couldn't tell if it was revulsion or confusion. She quickly shifted back to blank, so he kept talking, "At first it was just company, and then it was a lot more than company. Some were just fans, some were rats, drunk, high…when it was bad, they were all of it. But I was fuckin' 'em. A lot of 'em. One girl got tangled up in your quilts, and she tried to run. I was drunk and screamin' at her, scared the shit outta her. I don't know if it was her or me, prolly both, but the quilt tore when she took off." Nick looked down, into his tumbler, shrugged, and drank, waiting for what he believed would be the inevitable explosion from Brena.
Through the whole thing, Brena held still, the only clue to her emotions the slight ripple in her whiskey from the tremor in her hands. Quietly, she sighed, then sipped her drink, and refused to look up. "You've brought the quilts with you, Nick?"
"Uh?" Nick looked confused, then looked at Brena like he didn't understand what she asked, "Uh, yeah, I did. I mean, I do. I always bring them. I take a second suitcase. They're at the hotel, I just don't take out the one that's torn, now. I, uh, I worry I'm gonna make it worse. It's...it's the one with the peacock on it."
Quieter, now, and with a much more noticeable tremor in her hands, Brena took a much heavier drink from her tumbler, but didn't look up at Nick. "You've seen the quilt in the corner of the room, then? You must've; you've looked at it twice tonight. You've just been kind enough not to ask about it."
Nick hadn't realized how far forward he had to lean in to hear Brena speak until he realized how tired his arm felt from his leaning on it. Adjusting closer to her, he spoke quietly. "The one that's all bunched up? Yeah, Bren. It's weird for you. You always sounded like you took care of Hazel's stuff."
"It's torn. Straight through, pattern and backing, batting's all come out, it's a mess."
Nick wrinkled his brows; Brena still hadn't looked up at him, but drank again, hitting the bottom of her tumbler much faster than he expected of her and pouring another for herself with tremendously unsteady hands. Gently, he reached toward her and steadied the bottle of whiskey, then put her tumbler on the floor next to her, rather than let her drink more. "Now I'm gonna tell you to slow down. What the fuck happened that one of Hazel's quilts got tore up here?"
"I...thought I was doing the right thing. Trying to be more social instead of hole up in here all the time, and trying to stop a drunk from driving home. I went to a pub – not Deaglan's, just some random spot nearby, but nothing I ever usually went to; Meredith didn't even know I went – and met someone," Nick sniffed derisively, "And we'd had a drink or two. We didn't meet intentionally; I went out for a pint and he just came over and started up a conversation. It was happenstance, I really wasn't looking. Well...I don't know if that's the truth, either. Alison was here, and that was a whole different sort of disaster, but I felt like...like...oh, I don't know. Like maybe she was right. Like I was failing, somehow. Dying. So maybe I was looking to invite trouble, I couldn't tell you. But I ended up at a pub, and I ended up talking to someone. I didn't feel comfortable letting him drive home; he said lived cross-town. What I thought I was doing was having him come up for a pot of coffee, so he'd sober up. I wasn't interested in anything else."
Brena sighed, and fumbled around for her tumbler, but Nick moved it out of her reach again. Rolling her eyes, Brena resigned herself to finishing her story without the benefit of whiskey for courage, "Nick, what do I know about relationships? Not a thing, that's what. He said he lived cross-town; it was probably a lie. How would I know? But, he had it in his head that I was bringing him upstairs for a roll around the sheets. When I told him that wasn't happening, he was furious. Started knocking things around the brownstone on his way out the door, and the last thing he did was snatch the quilt off the back of the sofa and tear it straight in two."
"Bren, does this asshole still show up at the pub?"
"I wouldn't know, Nick. I haven't been back myself. Like I said, it wasn't my usual spot."
'Maybe we oughta go, just so I can say hello to him.' "Okay, so he was out the door, but what about the quilt now?" Nick spun himself around behind Brena, reaching awkwardly for a throw pillow from the sofa and wedging it behind him against the coffee table before he pulled her against his side – the position was all manner of uncomfortable and ill-advised, but he was going to do his damnedest to try to hold her.
"I was terrified. I turned all the locks on the door and ran to the attic. I know, I know, it's every bad stereotype from every bad horror movie, but I wanted somewhere I could...hide, I suppose. I was convinced he was going to come back in. Nick, he was so angry. Granted, he left, but not without making a scene. I hadn't meant for it to be a date, though I suppose that's what he thought it was, or what he thought it turned in to, we hadn't intended to meet up at the bar, it certainly wasn't an invitation to my bedroom, it was just coffee. I thought it was just coffee, anyway. I didn't want him to drive drunk. When I came downstairs the next morning, the quilt just..."
Slowly, Nick passed her tumbler of whiskey around himself and toward her hands. Brena held it, but didn't drink until she heard Nick sip at his own. "Go on, Bren. What about the quilt?"
"It made me sick. He didn't know anything about me, or Deaglan, or Hazel, or you, and what he thought he would...could...do to me on that quilt...and then what he did to that quilt...I know I can sew it back together, put the batting back in, all that. It's not that it's torn, Nick. It's that I'm the reason."
Wrapping his arms tightly around Brena, Nick leaned forward just enough to rest his chin on the top of her shoulder and pull her over, somewhat into his lap, though he had no idea how to turn her and make the gesture seem natural and not awkwardly desperate. His thighs and her hips didn't want to work together; she was far too angular and he was far too muscular. He was going to try, though. He needed it; so did she.
"Hey, uh, Brena, can-"
Brena, constantly aware of things Nick didn't know he radiated, pushed herself back against him as hard as she could, which wasn't much considering she had little in terms of traction and body weight to work with, "Yes, mo trodaire. We'll head off to bed once the bottle's empty and the fire burns itself down. And we'll bring the quilts – the ones we don't put up, anyway. First door on the right, down the hall. Master suite. It's ours, now. And, I think they'd want it that way."