Liz's POV
The rare emptiness brought with it an even rarer quietness to the house.
Leon had taken a morning shift at the hospital, Imogen was away on a hunt, and Nico was spending the day with Elijah to celebrate their anniversary…..not that he ever spent much time around here anymore anyway, thanks to Leon.
So, that all left me with the big, now empty house all to myself, for a change.
I must've spent at least a half an hour or so skimming through the magazines in my collection, on a hunt of my own to find one I might not have exhausted myself on quite yet, only to find that there were none left….for now, anyway. Perhaps, I'll make a run to the store to try my luck for something new there, a little later.
In the meantime, I just shrugged and opted to try the TV for something to watch.
I had started flipping through the channels, but only got to like the fourth or fifth channel when I became distracted by the near distant sound of scattered thoughts that seemed to be coming from someone outside.
I flipped through just a couple more channels before they rang the doorbell.
"Coming!" I called out, somewhat suspiciously, as I slowly got back up off the couch and headed for the door.
When I finally opened it, a young girl, who couldn't have been much older than Nico and who had some similarities in her face…..though, not identical, and long, dark blond hair, was standing on the porch.
Her thoughts became more clear to me, now that she was close enough.
It was a messy back and forth between Nico's name and some girl's name.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
"I hope so." She sighed. "I'm looking for, Aud-Nico. We haven't- well, I haven't heard from him in, well, I don't know how long, but last month, I heard that he was staying with someone up here…...about a year ago? I think it was."
"Odd Nico?" I repeated back to her, recognizing the slip up and waiting to see how she was about to try and explain it away."
"Yeah, Odd Nico." She chuckled nervously. "I used to tease him with it when we were kids, it's sort of an inside joke- "
"You're his sister." I interrupted. "...who was hoping he hadn't told me anything about you and that I would just laugh along at you almost deadnaming him on my porch, under the guise of an innocent little inside joke."
"Look, is he here or not?" She sighed, trying to ignore the call out.
"No." I said, more coldly. "...but maybe if you're lucky, I'll pass the message along."
I started to shut the door, but she put her hand up, like she was gonna try to keep it open, had I continued.
Ha, fat chance.
"Please?" She pleaded, surprisingly more genuinely now. "I-I'm sorry. Look, I won't…"
"You won't….what?" I asked her, sighing as I opened the door more widely again.
"Just….tell him I was looking for him." She sighed, offering me an envelope that I hadn't previously noticed she'd been holding in her hands. "...and give him this."
I took it from her, quickly glancing it over in my hands.
"It's an invitation to my wedding…" She explained before I could ask. "I was really hoping to give it to him in person…..kind of didn't want him to find out this way, you know?"
Hearing the new thoughts that were racing through the poor girl's head, and seeing that she was more genuine in her demeanor now, I decided to let up on her just a little.
"I understand." I told her. "I'll make sure he gets it."
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."
I nodded. "I'm Liz, by the way."
She half smiled. "Ainsley, but you can call me Lee….nice to meet you."
I smiled politely back, but didn't say anything else before shutting the door behind her.
"If only." I sighed, making my way back to the couch.
Eventually, I had decided to venture out and utilize the local library to satisfy my reading desires for the day, still making my aforementioned inevitable stop by the drugstore to pick up a couple new magazines on the way back.
In fact, I was just cracking open the second read in my stack when the early evening, and the end of Leon's shift for the day, came around.
Laid across the couch, I looked up from my current book at the sound of him coming in through the front door.
"Hey." I greeted. "How was work?"
He shrugged as he crossed the living room to hang his coat up.
"No better, no worse than usual." He began looking around, sniffing curiously at the air around him, so I decided to tune into his thoughts, which were all of trying to figure out who had stopped by while he was out.
"Some blonde woman." I told him, before he could ask. "Never seen her before, she was asking about Nico, wanted to drop something off for him. You're welcome for me sparing her the details, ever eloquent as they are, of why he so rarely comes back around here now, by the way."
He decided not to remark on that, as if I wasn't getting an earful of his thoughts on the matter, whether either of us liked it or not.
"You get a name?" He asked instead, with a sigh.
"Ainsley…Lee, she said to call her."
The thoughts that flowed through his head now, as he was connecting the dots, were becoming more scattered and harder to make out individually, though clearly of bitter resentment.
I watched as he found the envelope she'd given me to pass on, and picked it up from the table to read the name to himself, in full.
Ainsley Collins.
"I don't understand, does that mean something to- " I started to ask, reading the flashbacks in his mind of that same woman, a little younger than she is now, and in a hospital setting.
"Well, presuming you got that she's his sister, I presume she didn't mention why she couldn't get ahold of him otherwise."
"Nor did I read it from her thoughts, although from what I did read, she certainly was carrying some guilt over it, not that I needed to read that, I could probably tell just by watching how nervously she acted around me."
He nodded. "Her name is Ainsley Collins, she and Nico had a pretty big falling out when he came out to her about wanting to transition, and quite frankly, wasn't exactly much nicer to any of us…." He was referring to the hospital staff who'd been treating Nico's Covid at the time. "...when all we did was treat him with the basic human respect that everyone else on the ward should've been."
"Yeah, Nico's told me most of that. Me, he's still good with."
"Alright!" He snapped, sighing before he spoke again. "...You didn't tell her where he is, did you?"
"Of course not, I just said I'd pass that along." I gestured my hand towards where he'd slammed the envelope back down on the coffee table.
"You know what, maybe don't even do that." He muttered. "..kid's been through enough, as it is."
"Right, and who's at fault for that now?" I scoffed.
He didn't even dignify that with a response, just huffed and stormed out of the room.
"I don't know what I expected." I sighed, looking back down when he was out of sight, gazing at the envelope on the table in front of me.
