His persistent smile washes away all her seething annoyance so fast that she would be irritated by that alone if he weren’t so damn handsome while doing it.
“Not letting go of the helicopter thing, are ya?”
“Nope.”
“Listen, I can’t make grand promises, but that’s always been the plan, you’re right. We make it together.” He goes quiet for a moment, shucking his final outer layer, leaving him in only a long-sleeve shirt, while he peels off his shoes to rub painfully at his toes. “An heir and a spare.”
She tilts her head. “Hmm?”
“That’s what my father used to say about me and Oliver, only despite being the older one, I was the spare. You might be the only person who’s ever thought I wasn’t disposable. It’s one of those things that feels like a genetic trait.”
She’s about to reply, with what she isn’t sure, but before she can, he grips the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Headache?”
“It’s fine. I’ll be okay. Not that bad.”
Whatever anger she held fades quickly in the wake of Theo paling three shades lighter and his pupils dilating. She guideshim to a chair in front of an old desk. “Sit down, I’ll look around for some pain meds, there’s gotta be something.”
“We need what’s in that pharmacy, but not with the bear still out there.”
Her gut drops, both because there might be medication he needs blocked by an angry animal, and because there might be medicationshe wantsin that same place. Nora has been clean for a long time. The cravings are manageable. She goes whole days and even a week or more sometimes without thinking of a fix, but she also hasn’t put herself in any situations to test her strength. She isn’t sure she can be let loose in a pharmacy still stocked with supplies and be trusted not to swallow something she absolutely should not.
She rifles through the desk drawers and employee lockers, finding a few snacks here and there but nothing remotely useful for his migraines.
“I swear I’m not usually so fucking fragile,” he groans. “I don’t get them this often.”
“You’ve been under a lot more stress than usual out here. I’m not surprised they’re hitting you back-to-back.”
In any other situation, she might poke at him or tease. Make some mild insult about how his fragility is offending her, but he looks utterly miserable already, and she doesn’t have it in her to contribute to his pain. She slams one of the desk drawers without thinking, frustrated at the lack of anything helpful, and he jumps a mile.
“Okay, okay, let’s get you on one of those cots in the back,” she says softly, spotting him doubled over in the chair, shoulders hunched up as he clutches at his hair. She squats in front of him, peering down, trying to catch his eyes, having to pry his arms away to force him to look at her. “Hey, tell me if lying down helps or hurts.”
“Helps. Sometimes.”
“Alright, let’s go. Lean on me if you need to.”
She hasn’t seen him this bad before. There have been a couple of headaches, but it hasn’t been anything that over the counter drugs couldn’t resolve, at least from her point of view. Maybe it’s been building this whole time and she just hasn’t been privy to that information yet. Her terror about what the hell they’re going to do if this spirals out of control festers in her nerves as she helps him into the back room and deposits him onto the cleanest looking cot in one of the cells.
He curls onto his side in her direction, mumbling that it’ll pass, but she isn’t so sure.
“What exactly do you usually take when it gets bad?” she asks.
“Lithium.”
“Fuck. We aren’t going to find that here. I dunno what’s in the pharmacy though. I can go look—”
“No!” He grabs her by the arm, clutching hard. “Not while the bear is out there. Please, please don’t go yet.”
She can’t just sit here and watch him suffer, but that’s exactly what he’s asking her to do while he degrades with every passing second. She can’t help him if the bear tears her to pieces, though, so she relents with a sad nod, taking hold of his hand by slipping her palm under his and pulling it into her lap.
“I’ll be okay,” he says again. “It’ll pass.”
* * *
Having to pee when you’re responsible for keeping someone else from using the hunting knives on their own temples is a traitorous act by her body, but unless Nora wanted to let loose on the ground or in a trash can right in front of Theo while hewrithed in bed, she had no choice but to duck quietly out the back of the building and squat in the snow.
She hurries back before anything outside can spot her, and hopefully before he rolls off the cot. At least she was smart enough to put the weapons out of reach. He’s gotten so much worse over the last couple of hours that she can hardly stand to be near him anymore without it ripping at her soul, but she can’t abandon him either. He needs her. She couldn’t imagine forcing him to suffer alone, and he is absolutely suffering, that much is clear. He’s stopped talking to her, stopped crying out or cursing. Now he simply vibrates on the mattress while squeezing her hand in a vice grip, tears dripping down his face.
It’s enough to break her heart and have her feeling entirely useless.
