Theodore

Theodore

[Theodore: That entry greeting doesn't sound good for mortals.]

Nathan

Years of therapy are not enough time to cover the dynamic that exists between the two divorced parents and the two children that make up what used to be the Amherst family. One could state facts. Try and trot out evidence to support the years of silence that spread out like oil across the surface of an ocean but there is no justifying anything that any of the adults did. All the children can do is forgive. That is asking far too much sometimes. So is asking other people to understand why they are the way that they are.

The facts are this:

Nathan was thirteen years old and Hannah was four when Shira Feld-Amherst filed for divorce from Theodore Amherst and won full custody because she had more strings to pull than he did. More people owed her favors than owed him favors. She was married again within six months to Ron Marszalek who was the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants and this man was their adoptive legal father before too long. They dragged the kids to a new house on the outskirts of Omaha. Their real father moved first to D.C. and then to Denver.

The boy joined the U.S. Marine Corps and that upset and angered their mother. She was further upset and angered when instead of coming home after he was nearly killed by a roadside bomb he moved across the fucking country to be with the girl he had been with since his junior year of high school. She was beyond upset and angered when instead of coming home after his proposal was rejected Nathan moved out to Denver because his father happened to choose that moment in time to reach out to him.

Shira and Nathan haven't spoken to each other in over a year.

The girl had no contact with their father growing up. Thought she would have no contact with him her first year of college and then she had to track him down when she found out her big brother had been in a car crash and told no one. Their father was the one calling her when Nathan was back in the hospital a few months later having been attacked by someone of questionable mental hygiene. Hannah just turned nineteen in December. She hasn't been home since she moved into the freshman housing at UC Berkeley. She came to stay with Nathan during both Thanksgiving and winter breaks and intends to stay with him over the summer while she completes an internship in Denver.

Shira and Hannah speak on the phone at least once a month. Their conversations are mostly arguments. Hannah routinely sends her brother texts that read:

"AAAAAAGH MOM IS THE WORRRRST NATE DID YOU KEEP THE RECEIPT?!"

Their father visited Nathan in the hospital twice, maybe. Both times his son was delirious with pain medication or fever and he'd stayed anyway. They haven't seen each other since he was discharged. Nate keeps making excuses. He didn't make an excuse this time. He agreed to dinner.

The last time they saw each other was twenty-four hours before he wound up in the hospital. Nathan never got around to calling his mother like Teddy had asked him to.

Anyway:

Tonight Nate is standing outside the restaurant they agreed upon. He was early even though he trusts his father is going to be late. He smokes a cigarette and uses his back to block the wind and tries not to check his phone because if he checks his phone time is going to come to a crawl.

Theodore

There's a long history in Theodore's family of troubled marriages and disastrous love affairs. There is a longer history in Theodore's family, because it is a family that has produced sons, of tense or troubled relationships between father and son. Theodore. Most people don't call him Theodore. They shorten it to Theo or to Teddy, and he looks like a Teddy, even now that he's silvering, that he's tarnishing, that he's definitely passed by the halfway mark and is on the slow but inevitable decline: 'sup, Death. Be seein' you. But you stay the fuck away from my son. You can still see where he was a handsome man. Men hover in the 'prime' for what feels like an eternity. He walks quickly and that's because he's always got somewhere to be or something to do or he's late and here he is walking from the direction of the parking lot. Not as late as usual, but still late. Brisk, but part of that is energy. He doesn't check his watch tonight not yet.

Whatever the Hell he felt about Shira and Marszalek he's tried not to let it show to the kids. Easy when he wasn't able to see them. Now Theodore had two sob-stories: mom disappeared, wife took the kids. He never had trouble getting laid.

But as he closes with Nate he gives the boy a look, accompanied by a faint frown. Smoking again, but Theodore doesn't say a thing about it. He's dressed casually, but you can see that he's got some money, not a lot but enough, and he's got a leather satchel, the lawyer's answer to 'purse' when a litigation bag is just too much.

"Nathan. Hungry?" Of course Nate is. He's been waiting. Theodore opens the door to the restaurant. Doesn't take charge beyond that, because it's tricky. Let the kid do it.

He looks rather tired, Theodore.

Nathan

Shira doesn't know their son still smokes. Might have been she caught him doing it a couple times when he was home between deployments. He was stationed in North Carolina which wasn't exactly neighboring Nebraska but it was sure as shit closer than Helmand which was in Afghanistan which is where they sent him after they sent him to Iraq. Before they sent him to Iraq Ron caught him buying a 30-rack of beer from a gas station near the house en route to a party. The kid was only 19 but he didn't say anything. The chances of him dying over there were pretty high.

Some parents use divorce as an opportunity to air their grievances to the kids in an attempt to absolve themselves of the guilt they feel over the way the partnership ended. Hannah asks Nathan sometimes if Mom or Theodore talk about each other. She refuses to call him Dad even though she has seen numerous pictures of child-sized Hannah conked out on Teddy's lap at home or with her arms around his neck at some social function or another one hand supporting her flank and the other holding a beer. Even though it was obvious he loved his kids.

Nathan is more forgiving than Hannah is. He sees the frown and no apology comes to his features but he does put the thing out without taking another drag. The scar on his temple is still pink but a healing sort of pink. The discoloration of the white of his eye isn't obvious except in the most fluorescent of lights. He's lucky to still have the damned thing.

He's lucky about a lot of things. This is the second time he should have died and didn't just since coming to Denver. He does not dress as if he has money. He dresses like he works for print media and could be out of a job at any moment.

"I could eat," he says.

Theodore looks tired. So Nate hustles forward and takes over holding the door open for him. There are two of them like an airlock between the outside and the hostess station. Nate holds the second one open for him too.

"The, uh... I put the reservation under your name. It's easier to spell."

Theodore

His eyebrows go up when Nate takes over door duty but he doesn't say anything to that either. Yet. Doesn't say anything when Nate gets to the second door first. "Alright," when Nate says that he put the reservation under Theodore's name. He doesn't look sad. Shira working it so the kids didn't have his last name is an old wound. It's less of a thing than the still-pink scars on his sons face.

So he doesn't miss a beat when he gives the hostess his name, looks over at Nathan while the pretty lady stacks a couple of menues, the kind that are behind plastic but on heavy card-stock and feel like a block of wood in your lap once you've taken them, looks over Nathan, and he's a discerning man. Theodore. He's got a way of looking at someone, you see. It's not guilt-inducing, it's just clarity or maybe-clarity, hard to tell, but could be, couldn't it?

But before he can say anything, if he was even going to, the hostess calls their attention, leads them through the restaurant - let's say it's food from the deep South, the kind've place where the meat's pricey but delicious, they put brown sugar on the butter they serve with biscuits, and the drinks and cold desserts are served in pewter cups and on pewter plates so icy it's like an icebox miracle - to a booth near the back. Theodore puts a hand on Nate's shoulder very briefly like he didn't notice he was doing it when Nate sits or stands like he's waiting for Theodore to seat himself first and Theodore sits after.

They're almost immediately beset by a waiter who wants to tell them the specials. Who asks what they're having to drink, and Theodore allows himself a whiskey and a water. It'll go great with the appetizer of fried pickles or whatever the fuck they're getting. After taking their initial orders, a certain promise of attention on his face, the waiter hies him off, and Theodore and Nathan are alone at last.

"How are things? How's the eye?"

Nathan

It's easier for Nate to hide latent discomfort in social settings when he's with someone his own age. When he's in groups where everyone is older than him then it's just funny. People take care with him. All the old-timers at work. They'll bust balls but look at the guy. He looks like a woodland creature wandered into a suburban mall can't find his way back out again. Big wide-eyed idiot too curious and brave to run away from things that don't concern him.

He is not a woodland creature and this is not a comrade or a coworker.

Nathan

Nathan

JOVE I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU

Nathan

Theodore is not an ignorant man but Nathan tried to lie to him when he was a kid. He tried more than once. It never worked. By the time he was nine Nathan learned the first big lesson of his life: lawyers can sense a lie before it's left a person's lips. And this particular lawyer was a district attorney in the 1990s before he became a divorced district attorney in 2000.

Lying to his father was not a good idea when he was a child. It might not be a good idea now either but he hasn't tried yet.

Nathan ordered a beer. His palate is slowly evolving. He ordered some local microbrew that he picked at random off the menu and called it a day.

"I don't have to take a million antibiotics anymore," he says. "And my vision's fine, the doc gave me a gold star at my last followup. So I've got that going for me." He doesn't want to talk about his eye, must be. He parries pretty quickly: "What about you? How's work?"

Theodore

"A gold star?" Theodore says. "That's good. No lollipop too?" He must be stalling, too. The quip comes easy, but Theodore is not somebody who stalls for very long. Just long enough, depending on the case, usually. A tactic he abhors. "Work's complicated."

He could leave it there. But he doesn't. Theodore can have a conversation if he puts his mind to it. So he tells Nathan a couple stories about work. An interesting case he was asked to consult on that's over now, so he can talk about some of it. The first-year law student who thinks he's gonna be a John Grisham hero and who turned in a paper which was literally a speech and summary of A Time to Kill. " - and this is the hope of our nation's future," Theodore finishes, wryly.

He gets more into a discussion of Eyewitness Identification Procedures in Virginia and blah blah blah. He's interested in it so it seems a little more interesting than it might otherwise be and eventually Theodore segues from that to " - what else have you got going? Besides the gold star. You don't talk about," and perhaps Nathan can see it, the flicker in Theodore's eyes as if realizing perhaps he has missepped, because Nathan doesn't talk about anything easily, "your friends."

He knows somebody Nathan worked with died in that car crash. He doesn't know how he's handling himself. He'd like to hear that Nathan has people he cares about.

"Or your work. Feel like you're making a good change?"

Nathan

No lollipop, too?

That gets what passes for a laugh from his son. Dad jokes. You can't laugh too loud or it just encourages proliferation.

Nathan at least understands judicial process and can have a discussion about it. Between his coursework when he was working on his journalism degree and his sister's decision to go into international relations he has had plenty of academic exposure to it. Then there's his day job. He doesn't have to follow through with the stories he publishes but when he does find himself afforded the opportunity Marszalek's articles are informative without being sensational.

He hasn't published anything on his blog since December. A memorial entry about the homeless man who had gone missing over the summer and the woman who took photographs for all of the essays written since he moved to Denver. That's the closest he has come to talking about the crash and he didn't really write about the crash. Just how Rodriguez's sister Sandra was holding up and how Shannon's passion and persistence had made telling people's stories possible.

At some point while they discussed Virginia legal procedure their drinks showed up and they had to order food. The younger of them scratched at his forehead and ordered as if he was guessing before giving the waiter back the menu.

If his father misstepped Nathan doesn't react. But he never does seem to react to anything. He was a self-sufficient sleep-deprived child. Didn't cry much when he was a baby and only had one incident where he awakened from a nightmare and didn't want to go back into his room. But Shira was not an indulgent parent. It wasn't Shira who entertained the idea that something outside Nathan's window had scared him so bad he needed someone to stay up with him until he fell asleep. What was he then - five? Nathan wouldn't remember this.

He flinches when his father asks if he thinks he's making a good change but recovers quickly.

"It's... yeah, it's good. There aren't a lot of crime reporters on-staff anymore, so I'm busy. Just gotta keep my foot on the grindstone. Or... whatever that expression is. Maybe my foot was supposed to go in the door."

Theodore

"Is that what you still want to do?"

Nathan

He hesitates before he answers. Like he hasn't thought about this or he isn't sure how to answer. Maybe he's lying. Knows whatever he says is going to be a lie and knows the longer he hesitates the more obvious he's going to be.

"Sure," he says. "Not forever. There's no upward mobility in crime reporting. I could move onto more investigative type stuff, just... I don't know."

Theodore

Theodore gives Nathan another one of those looks. He can look at people not necessarily how they want to be looked at, like isn't he such a thing, but that clarity. That clarity's sharp, isn't it? Bright enough to reflect.

"Blog's looking kind of sparse these days."

It's not quite a question and not quite a continuation, but nearly, almost.

Nathan

This is not the same type of laugh as the one the lollipop joke garnered. Nate has Shira's big brown doe eyes. They're only warm so long as he doesn't feel threatened or cornered. Towards the end of their marriage Shira's eyes never looked warm. She was not at her core a warm woman. Her physical affection was hard to come by. Even their kids will attest that she never liked them hugging her.

There's some irony in the fact that Hannah has Teddy's pale green eyes while Nate got Shira's but Nate isn't feeling terribly ironic right now.

Theodore can see exactly how he feels and Nate can see that he sees: Nate looks exhausted and uncertain. Scared. Not exactly threatened or cornered but he's starting to shut down anyway.

"Yeah," he says. Sits up straighter. Picks up his beer and eyes its volume. "I gotta find a new photographer."

Glug.

Theodore

"Your writing is good on its own."

He can see it, of course. Clear sight can be a burden. Theodore can see when people are guilty, or thinks he can, and sometimes that just doesn't matter, because the law's not really for guilt. It's for people who trespass against it, for people who do not want to be trespassed against, but innocence and guilt: Theodore's been around for a long time. He's seen a lot. There was a period in his life where he tried not to see.

Was he scared?

He's been scared before. He's been threatened before. He's been uncertain before, too.

He's uncertain now, and, though he doesn't show it, he's scared for the son he barely knows. Wishes. That's all - wishes. When he was a kid, his dad used to sing When You Wish Upon A Star to him. Apocrypha. One anecdote says that his mother, his first mother, hated that song, the other says she sang it to him too. It became part of his childhood. He used to sing it to Nate and Hannah and his grandfather worked on some of the art.

"That reminds me. You might not remember your grandfather," Theodore begins. Michael. Michael died when Nate was still young, and they didn't live close. Theodore begins, but stops. Glint of his watch, not that he's looking at it, when he reaches over for his whiskey, finds only ice.

Nathan

The compliment takes Nathan by surprise but he doesn't cling onto it. It's not like he doesn't have memories of his childhood. A presence in his life that he can recall. Both of his parents worked long hours and came home exhausted many nights but it wasn't like his father wasn't around to help him with his English homework or teach him how to ride a bike. It wasn't like he didn't read to them.

Nathan has foggy memories of being sung to. Maybe not which song it was. He was thirteen years old when his father went away and thirteen years passed before he saw him again. A lot of memories coming up are coming up because of torn-off scabs. This is a necessary mess they have to make if they want to repair their relationship.

Then his father mentions his father. Nathan's grandfather. He frowns a bit but doesn't interrupt. He became a combat correspondent because he thought it sounded interesting and he really didn't want to have to kill anybody for a living. He became a reporter because he likes to listen to people talk. Look at his essays: he wants to tell people's stories. He doesn't want to live in a world where people he can reach out and touch die without anyone knowing their name.

He makes a quiet noise that's part agreement no i don't remember him and part prompting. Go on. The waiter will come back over in a moment. He already saw Nathan kill his beer.

Theodore

Go on. Theodore smiles this wry smile in spite of himself. Look at Theodore. He was good at playing at being a bastard when he was younger. During the years of often getting laid. Or he could've been - a certain intensity, bone-structure wise, coupled with Good bluntness. Go on: like Nate, who always liked to be read to, preferred to be told stories that weren't in the books, is saying this now, and -

Widow's peek and a vein in his forehead and he's silvering, but he's not dead yet. Go on. He wants to tell the kid that.

"I was cleaning out one of the warehouses this past week and I found his old Voigtlander. That's a camera he used to go around with back in the 50s. Practically a kid. Voigtlander's an old company, actually sort of interesting because it was in existence before the invention of photography. They made scientific instruments: out of Vienna, I believe?" A man for the facts, Theodore. Speaking of facts, it's a fact you should get back to the story. "I remember him telling me that he used to go around with it and snap pictures of interesting-looking people. He'd try to take them so it would be a surprise because sometimes they'd look more like they were real. Documentary-photography, went to some wild places. Your grandfather, he was wild," a low chuckle, "according to Gran and Grand but they wanted him to stop hanging with the plebs and reds. Pay more attention to his path in life."

"But he did go to some wild places. Like he'd say that he just kind of did it as a hobby, as a joke. Because Grand didn't like it. Sold a couple photographs to some magazines, but they might've belonged to … well, anyway, he meant that it was a joke. His real passion was law. Your grandfather …"

The whiskey has been refilled. Theodore looks at it, not like he's avoiding, but just like oh right a drink. He takes a sip. "He worked hard at being a good father. He was given a lot of opportunities to work hard at it. Had them thrust upon him, but he wasn't an artist. But he did want to look around at the world and figure it out and figure out how to make it fair. I remember that about him. We didn't get along very well, but I thought of you, so I didn't throw it away. I thought I'd give it to you."

"It still works. Old, yeah. But maybe a hobby like that would be a good thing for you. Or maybe it would look good in your refrigerator."

Nathan

It's easy for Hannah to hate her father because she has both distance and that same clarity of perception that Nathan doesn't have. Nathan is an intelligent individual but he has the unfortunate distinction of giving people the benefit of the doubt. In his mind everyone is innocent until proven otherwise.

He has felt anger and resentment and hurt in the months following his attack in the park. Might have just forgotten about it if it weren't for two of his closest friends thinking and feeling fondly towards his attacker. Might not be marching off towards a certain untimely end if it weren't for his thinking that maybe it's just his own perception of reality that has him thinking this individual is a monster.

All monsters start out human. Even the pure-fiction monsters had to come from a human's imagination.

Theodore has his son's attention as he talks about Michael Amherst's old Voigtlander. His son isn't a photographer and he has never had much skill with even point-and-shoot technology but Teddy has a point. Their food shows up at some point and Nathan looks exhausted both of them look tired but Nathan looks the sort of exhausted that speaks of self-neglect. Like he's been staying up too late working and ignoring what his stomach tells him. Ignoring the need to sleep and shower. He'd rather listen to his father talk about his grandfather than start tucking into his food.

His grandfather worked hard at being a good father. Nathan's gaze softens at this. Like Michael wasn't the only one. When Nathan laughs at the joke about the refrigerator it's a hesitant laugh because the joke isn't all that funny lawyer jokes coupled with dad jokes being the least funny of all the jokes but it's still a laugh.

Maybe this is when Theodore starts to think Nate has the look of someone who's going off to war. That sense of mortality staring right into his face and every moment he has between now and then being very sharp and bright and real. Nathan isn't going off to war. His back got fucked back in 2011 and it got fucked again a few months ago and now he's so covered in scars and back medical bills that the military wants nothing to do with him.

"That's..."

He's touched. Overwhelmed a bit. Nate takes another slug of his beer and when he puts it down he looks long and hard at his father. Nods when the look is over.

"I've always wanted to learn. You know? Taking pictures is way different than..."

During his time in service Nathan was a combat correspondent. Knew how to carry a videocamera on his shoulder while hauling ass through a war zone. Dodging bullets and dead bodies while compiling evidence of what was going on for the people back home. There wasn't a lot of stillness there.

He clears his throat to rid his mind of the memory and takes a quick swallow of his beer.

"I just... no, that's awesome. Thank you. I'll definitely use it. Are any of the pictures he developed still around? Do you know?"

Theodore

They don't share a poignant moment when Nate's gaze softens. Maybe there's poignancy in the moment anyway, but Theodore who sees a lot he sees the softening gaze and knows what it's supposed to mean and he's got his own guilt. He knows he wasn't as good as his father tried to be. He knows he wasn't ever going to be as good, but Michael Eric Amherst was a fucking saint. Difficult to live with saints, especially when they're your father. Theodore can only imagine how Jesus managed: oh wait. Anyway. There's just a touch of wry acknowledgement and anyway Theodore is much too invested in telling the story. By the time it's done and Nate's replying, he's still got his forearm on the edge of the table and the tumblr of whiskey in his hand. He can hold a glass without ever setting it down and eat with one hand and give the impression of this being the thing to do.

Anyway. Nathan's touched and Theodore is glad to see it. Glad that the gift's been accepted with enthusiasm, because, after all, it's a piece of his own father, of his own history, shared history. And maybe it will help Nathan, since Theodore doesn't know how to. Give him something to do that's not whatever it is has him looking so drawn.

So he smiles at Nathan's reaction, and it's a pleased smile. He loves his kid. He puts the whiskey down, looks at Nate's plate before looking back at Nate and answering.

"Not really. Mostly it was a thing he did when he was a young man. Him and my mother, and when it was just him and myself he wasn't going to the same places. Most of that stuff got burned up in that house fire. There might've been some in one of the warehouses, but dad didn't have much luck keeping things."

"And... You're welcome. I hope you'll show me some of whatever you take. Not quite sure if it needs special film or what."

Nathan

When he tries to see things from his sister's perspective Nathan ends up with a headache. He tries to imagine what it had to have been like to be on the cusp of childhood and have everything upended as it was for her. She was just beginning to form good and solid memories of a life with her parents who were rarely in the same room together but Dad always had so much energy and even when he didn't he saved it for them. Mom was solid and stable and even if they couldn't rely on her for emotional support they knew she would be home at the same time every night and would give the same response no matter what they asked. Nathan was nine years older and to little Hannah he was cool and funny and dependable. He didn't hesitate before letting her ride on his shoulders or picking her up to swing her around. He would play with her Barbies and her Tonka trucks and more than once one of their parents would come home to see Nate lain on his stomach on the floor in the living room watching TV while Hannah used his back as a stage for whatever the hell she was doing with her toys.

And then one day Dad didn't come home anymore. Nathan was the one reading to her at night and making sure her hair didn't look like shit when she left for school in the morning and holding her hand the whole way to the bus. Even when Mom married Ron and Ron didn't expect the kids to call him Dad but Hannah did anyway because she was fucking five years old when Mom got married what the fuck else was she going to call him. Even then Hannah ran to Nathan when she scraped her knee or didn't know how to solve a long division problem or had a friend who was being an asshole. She should have been relying on their mother for these things or even their stepfather but Hannah learned fast.

Hannah was nine when Nathan took his oath of enlistment. She and Ron went to his enlistment ceremony but Shira had to sit a case and she was righteously pissed off about him enlisting anyway so she wasn't there. Theodore didn't know about it. Theodore didn't know about Nathan's deployments either. He had to find out secondhand that his oldest kid had joined the Marines and was in Iraq. Wouldn't even know if he got killed over there because Shira made sure he wasn't next of kin to Nathan anymore. Nathan feels his own brand of guilt about this. It's related to the guilt he feels leaving his sister with Mom and Ron but Hannah calls Ron 'Dad' so his guilt only extends so far.

He was barely coherent when they wheeled him into the emergency department in January but he was coherent enough to answer the charge nurse's questions. His emergency contact was his father.

Anyway. His dad's dad didn't have much luck keeping things. That must be genetic. Neither of them do either.

Nate's gaze had already gone soft from the admission and it isn't still oozing-soft but his eyes are that warm shade of brown that means he's in as good a mood as he gets in haunted as he looks all the time. He nods with a bit of tension between his brows. His food isn't going to eat itself. He picks up his fork and studies his options before spearing a green bean.

"I can just buy some off eBay. Shannon told me once even if the camera's really old companies still make the film. It might have to come from Korea but..."

He just ignores the pain saying her name causes him. Theodore is sharp, see. It's there and he sees it. He also sees how Nathan doesn't react to it. That's the sort of man his boy grew up to be.

Theodore

"Thank god for the internet," Theodore replies. He's watchful, he sees how Nate reacts to the name, knows who Shannon was.

Nathan

"Right?"

His humor is forced but it's still a good sort of humor. Better to laugh off things that hurt than dwell on them. If he ever cries or screams or hits things it's when he knows he's alone.

So he's trying very hard to be brave in front of his father. Give him the impression that he's doing great. That of all the things he has to worry about his son isn't one of them.

"The Internet taught me so many things."

Put more green beans in your mouth before your foot finds its way in there, Nathan.

Theodore

"Right," Theodore says, like he's all too aware of what a young man might learn from the internet. "Too bad it couldn't teach you to chew with your mouth closed."

Another Dad-joke. Or is it? Nathan, Nathan. Manners, please.

Theodore smiles faintly again; it's an amused smile, but maybe it's a little more sad than amused, because he's a little sad. There's no reason for Nathan to notice this; it could just be a consequence of the silver, of the graying, Death 'sup after all.

"So what's going on for you outside of work and hospital visits."

Anything you want to talk about?

Why do you have that look, kid?

Those are the questions behind the question, maybe.

Nathan

Deer in the headlights. His face doesn't even have to do anything different than it's been doing. A consequence of having the physical features that he does. All Nate has to do is stop what he's doing and stare at his father and the gig's up.

Nothing he wants to fess up to is going on for him.

"Um..."

He's got to give him something. He knows how this works. So he drops his gaze and pushes his beans around his plate. Hasn't touched his entree. Some sort of chicken situation. If he ate this sort of food more than once a month he'd be in trouble. Nathan is still young enough that he doesn't have to care too much about what he does to his body.

"I was seeing a... I don't know if you ran into her while I was on the messed-up-eyeball wing. Carole? We managed to date for like a whole month before I screwed that up, so. That's a new record, I think."

Theodore

"I don't remember her," Theodore says, but he wasn't that interested in whoever was hanging around when Nate was in the hospital. "Tough dating somebody just after a dramatic upheaval in your life occurs. You want to un-screw it up?"

Nathan

Nathan flinches. Yes. He does want to un-screw it up. He really likes this woman but he doesn't want to admit any of this. Maybe he thinks she's better off without him. The men in their family don't have the best luck with women.

"It's... I don't know."

Whatever's wrong won't go away with someone sitting up by his bedside all night until he falls asleep. Won't go away with a Band-Aid and reassurances that he's a tough guy. Won't go away at all if he doesn't tell someone but he doesn't know where to start.

"She's a cop. So it's already kind of complicated. That'd be like... I don't know. If you were prosecuting and decided to go out with one of the defense attorneys."

He's bad at analogies.

Theodore

That startles a laugh out of Theodore. He is not a smoker, so he doesn't cough mid-way through or choke on it; doesn't look abashed or anything like that.

"A reporter and a cop isn't the same thing as prosecution and defense in bed together. How'd you two meet?"

Nathan

Nate laughs too. His is more abashed. Like he didn't realize until after it was out of his mouth that it was the wrong thing to have said. A little relieved that his father laughed even if he doesn't really want to dwell on the reasons why the man might have laughed.

How'd they meet.

"Murder-suicide up on the north side day after New Year's. She drew the short straw and had to come talk to me when I showed up. They train 'em so they don't give the press phone numbers, we're supposed to call the Public Information Office? But she looked pretty new so I, uh." Dick move: "I asked for a number where I could call to follow up, and she gave me her cell number instead of a number at the station. And, uh. The next day I was in the hospital. So."

Theodore

"Naturally," Theodore says, his eyebrows up. He doesn't sound critical. His eyebrows go down, and he says, "The good news is that if that's how you started dating, whatever you did to screw it up, you probably still have a chance if you want one."

Nathan

"Yeah..."

This would be the part where most people confess to whatever it is that they did to screw it up. He got drunk and said something stupid and now he thinks he needs to quit drinking. Or he hit on one of her friends and she got pissed and now he thinks he needs to stop hitting on her friends. Or he was emotionally unavailable one too many times and she got upset and now he thinks he needs to learn how to deal with his issues.

Maybe he is emotionally unavailable. He's scowling down at his plate instead of letting his father see his face. He shrugs and makes himself look back up. Addresses Teddy's collarbone. He could point a camera at al-Qaeda snipers and piles of burning civilian bodies and helicopters falling down out of the sky after a rocket hit its rotor but he can't look his father in the eye now.

He's hiding something.

"I think she just needs space." He plants his eyes back on Teddy's face. "We both... you know how things with Janine ended. Carole was in kind of a similar situation with her ex. So."

Back down to his plate. Push push push. He looks back up. Looks over at his father's left hand like to confirm he's still not remarried but doesn't say anything else. Takes a big bite of his food.

Theodore

Theodore's romantic relationships or entanglements aren't something he talks about all that often with his son. He doesn't talk about Shira except inexplicably to tell Nathan to call her. You know how she is. He doesn't talk about anybody else either. He hasn't remarried as far as Nathan knows, and if he did, he's holding that card really close to his chest. Theodore is not a big fan of marriage because after all it's just another set of laws that allow the guilty and the innocent to get away with things they shouldn't get away with in all fairness. So that little glance at Theodore's left hand like to check makes the old man smirk. Doesn't dispell a certain poised wearyness.

Nathan's hiding something.

Of course he is. Theodore's whole life is things being hidden from him and him finding out what they are or never finding out what they are.

Nathan's hiding something, and of course he is. Nathan's his son, not his friend, and they have a complicated relationship.

"'Space,'" Theodore says, musingly. "I don't know, Nathan. 'Space' can just be an idea to use as a wedge for a door, keep that door shut. 'Space' is a good excuse not to engage with something, so it's easier when..." He trails off. "It doesn't make it easier. But what do I know."

He doesn't sound bitter. Or not too, not when he says but what do I know.

Nathan

"Kind of a lot."

This to what does he know. Not too bitter in the stating but Nathan is perceptive. Or he can be. Must have had to be growing up. His mother wasn't very open and his stepfather was a quiet man. His sister though. He doesn't have to be perceptive with his sister. Hannah has called Theodore more times this quarter-gone year alone than she has in the last fifteen years and sure it's been How's Nathan doing does he still have his eye is the medicine working when's he getting out of the hospital should I come out I can fly out one weekend if it would help. Last time it was Yeah we talked he offered I'm gonna be staying with him this summer when I do my internship I don't know maybe I'll see you then.

Baby steps.

Nate could fall on his face now. They're surrounded by strangers and he doesn't entirely trust anyone with this information. Never mind his father is the one who had to deal with him when he was a kid. The fact that he'd zone out sometimes like he was listening real hard to something no one else could hear. Or the fact that more than once he wandered off when they were out in public.

That was just kindling on the Theodore William Amherst Is Negligent and Irresponsible fire Shira lit when she built the case for full custody. When Nathan was six he crawled through a hole in the fence at school and the principal had to call the police and they found him in a field nearly a mile away. That wasn't Theodore's fault but it was still something that happened.

"Do you remember...?" Nathan flinches again. No wonder he'd rather be alone. He's too scared to share his life with someone else. "When I was little. Did I ever... Jesus Christ, I'm saying this out loud and I sound insane. Never mind."

Theodore

"What?"

Nathan

Nathan isn't breathing hard enough for someone at another table to read his distress but Theodore is right across from him and this is his son and the fact that he's breathing faster isn't something that slips by him. He is terrified right now and his hands don't shake to show it. The Marine Corps trained the shaking right out of them. His eyes are wide but they're always wide.

This isn't what he had in mind when he

Nathan

Jove you're a fucking asshole.

This isn't what he had in mind when he

Nathan

Yeah okay whatever that sentence clearly sucks.

"Did I ever talk to people who weren't there, or hear things other people couldn't hear? That you can remember."

Theodore

"A few times, yeah. I remember you were afraid of this one stretch of sidewalk in the park."

Nathan

That doesn't make him laugh. It was a long time ago and he was just a kid but he can remember that fucking stretch of sidewalk. When he speaks again it's with the same quality as one walks through a nightmare: slow and predetermined. No way to get around it. Knowing nothing good will come of it. You walk into traffic or the meat grinder or the gaping jaws of a waiting monster anyway. You don't have a choice.

He's never told this to anyone who hasn't already witnessed something fucked up because outside of a survival situation this is a symptom of psychosis. Maybe he is psychotic.

"That never stopped."

Sounds pretty ominous when he says it with a scar on his face. When he says it near to three months after he almost lost an eye.

Theodore

Theodore does not reply to that statement immediately. He studies Nathan, his breathing, how terrified he seems, everything. Doesn't quite seem taken aback, but it takes him a moment to figure out what to say, and his eyebrows are up again.

"You're telling me you still talk to people who aren't there."

Nathan

Nathan is about five seconds away from getting up and walking away. He looks like he'd have an easier time admitting that he got arrested for sexually assaulting someone or that he'd killed someone while he was in Afghanistan and relives it every night. But neither of those things are things that he has done. This isn't even something he has done. It's something that he has to live with but there's no real way to get around it.

He shakes his head like to say no no I don't talk to anybody who isn't here but it's a minute shake.

"No... I, um... no. But that's..." He takes the napkin off his lap and puts it down on the table. The legs of his chair bark as he pushes back. "That's why Carole and I aren't..." He clears his throat and makes himself look at his father even if it's just his chin this time. "Thanks for dinner. It was good to see you."

Theodore

"Nate, stay in your seat," Theodore says. "I want to understand what you're talking about." Minute pause. "Besides the camera's in the car and there's still dessert." Like that will soothe the troubled young man across from him. Theodore's great great grand-whatever was said to be Touched, but that's not a story Theodore's ever told Nathan. Maybe not one he knows very well.

Nathan

So Nate stays in his seat. Hard to tell if it's because it's not a plea or a suggestion but an order or if it's because his father calls him Nate and not Nathan. Other people looked over because of the harshness with which Nate had pushed back his seat but Theodore is still calm. They put it out of mind and go back to their meals just as fast as they can.

He stays in his seat and he scoots the thing back towards the table. Doesn't get up and doesn't say anything. Doesn't laugh at the joke about dessert.

Nate takes and releases a breath. Looks Theodore right in the eye now.

Theodore

He waits, silently. I want to understand what you're talking about. He doesn't re-frame that comment as a question yet. Nathan knows.

Nathan

"Dad, I don't even know what I'm talking about."

No desperation in it. He hadn't meant to bring this up. Hadn't meant to mention Carole either. It just happened. His father started asking about his life. Truly a groundbreaking moment in Amherst family history.

"Just... sometimes I hear things other people can't hear. And I know I'm not imagining it, but I don't really wanna try to explain that to a head shrinker. They already sicced one of them on me after the--" He points to his face. He's wearing a button-down shirt with the sleeves still cuffed at his wrists. It conceals the scars Theodore knows have to be on his arms. He saw the bandages when he was in the hospital. "--eye incident. Thought I was going to get PTSD if they ended up having to cut the thing out so they wanted to talk about my feelings for an hour, it was fucking stupid." Beat. "Sorry."

Theodore

"You're an adult now. You're allowed to swear," Theodore says.

He runs his fingers through his graying hair when he sits back, and at least Nathan has this to console him: baldness doesn't seem to be a thing.

"These things you're hearing... What do you think they are?"

Nathan

He sits back too but he doesn't run his fingers through his hair. No clue where the blond came from. Michael, probably. Michael had blond hair.

And he doesn't want to come right out and say it. Instead of looking scared now he looks embarrassed. Like they're talking about something illicit. Like his father is expecting to hear him say he hears a voice narrating his daily routine or that someone is whispering to him in an attempt to convince him to climb the nearest tallest building and start plucking people off with a rifle. That's not what he hears though.

"I..." No. Wrong word. "They're dead people."

Theodore

"Ghosts," he says. He hasn't called Nathan crazy yet. He doesn't sound like he's going to call Nathan crazy, although he also doesn't sound like he's about to go 'me too!' and then they're going to braid each other's hair and it's going to be the best father-son bonding moment ever.

Ghosts are, as far as supernatural things go, easy enough to believe in in a theoretical way. Agnostically, like why not, could be, maybe the pet was acting strange because of a ghost, maybe that figure I saw was a ghost, sure, I saw a ghost once: lots of people have those stories.

"Hmm."

Nathan

The chair creaks. Nathan isn't actively extracting himself from the conversation again but he's not relaxed either. The G word helps. Doesn't completely calm him. He's still wide-eyed and distrustful. Trying to find words that will undo what he just said and coming up short.

"I'm sorry," he says again.

Theodore

"What for?"

Nathan

He snorts. Thinks about it. Shakes his head and drags his hand down his face and picks up his fork to go back to moving food around his plate.

"I don't know." It dawns on him that Theodore is taking this awfully well. He slowly stops playing with his food and looks up from what he's doing. Frowns at his father but doesn't say anything. Suspicion clung to him still. Waiting for the moment when his father suggests they go to hospital maybe. Or starts to actively interrogate him.

Or maybe he's waiting for his father to out with some other family heirloom. Some relic from a past he doesn't remember. Oh someone said Grandma used to hear ghosts too it's no big deal.

Theodore

"Then don't apologize," Theodore says.

"I'm going to have to think about this." When he sees how Nathan is looking at him, that suspicious kid look. He's going to have to think about it because he's not sure what to say about it. If Nathan needs meds surely somebody would've noticed by now. Maybe it's whatever he's been taking lately and stress catching up, and everybody who's examined Nathan is a quack. Maybe it is something more. Great great grand something, maybe they weren't mad.

He has his own ghost story, after all, Theodore. The woman who came to him when he was really young, pale and beautiful and scared, came to his room to talk to him, helped him with something so he knew she was real, but maybe she wasn't. Maybe it was a dream.

"But if that's what's..." He pauses, frowns. "If that's what's keeping you from," a glance at the rest of the restaurant, then at his whiskey. "From, uh, sharing your life with ... friends, lovers, blog followers, whatever they're called," lofty like he's sure there's some name he just doesn't know. They were talking about 'space' and how it's not always a good thing. That's what made Nate begin-to and then confess, so Theodore's trying to relate it back to that point. Still thinking about how scared Nathan seems behind the exhaustion.

And, of course, does not know what to do.

"Well. It's important to let the people in your life into your life; faith healers and psychics seem to get on all right in this world."

They're mostly con artists, but hey.

"So do the alcoholics and heroine addicts."

Theodore

[lala]

Theodore

[LALALA]

Nathan

No way to have prefaced this so that Theodore had time to prepare himself and an answer. He could have said something over the phone maybe. Could have said something years ago. Could have been more vocal about his little problem when he was a child.

It hasn't stopped him from accomplishing anything. He got a four-year degree that he started while he was still in the service and he still has a job that has the potential to become a career. Hears the point his father is trying to make even if for once he doesn't have a clue what he's supposed to say or how he's supposed to say it.

This isn't lost on Nathan. He can tell his father has no idea what he's supposed to do or say. If he's supposed to do or say anything.

He snorts at the introduction of criminals and addicts to the conversation.

"That's good," he says. "That's... yeah. Faith healers and alcoholics. Future's looking real bright, man."

Don't be a dick, Nate. He's trying.

"Maybe I can write about that to get the old blog going again." He holds up his hand like to manifest a title: "'Psychics: They Get On All Right.'"

Theodore

"Maybe you should," Theodore says, with a laugh. "Or you could write a post reviewing the food here. That would require you to eat some of it."

His voice doesn't get sharp, and the laugh doesn't mean Theodore looks away from the son he doesn't get.

"Speaking of getting on all right, how's your sister?"

And that's where the conversation will go. Theodore won't stop Nathan from bringing it back to anything about the voices, about what he confessed, and he won't try to tell him to go talk to his friends, to talk to Carole, to not let 'space' be an excuse any more bluntly than he already did. He said it already, after all: what does he know?

But toward the end of the meal, Theodore will ask Nathan for some help cleaning out the warehouse. Maybe it's a peace-offering, not that there was a war here, but there's always a war here because there's a father and there's a son. Maybe there'll be some more of Michael's stuff, maybe Nathan'll be interested in it.

Maybe it'll be a guarantee that Theodore will actually see Nate again some time before the next major holiday.

Afterward, looking more exhausted than ever, a little flushed with the amount of whiskey he wound up drinking but not so flushed he can't drive, Theodore will walk Nathan over to his car. Ask him how he got there. If he needs a ride. And he'll give Nathan the camera in a case that looks new, open it up and show him how it works there in the dark radiance-slimed noir rain-slicked parking lot.

"Be good, kid," he says. Not I love you.

And then they part ways.

Nathan

[SUCH WRAP]