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Laura dropped her hand back down to her side and turned to move away.
Which was exactly when the door opened.
“Laura?” Nate asked, his deep voice a rumble in the quiet street. She could not exactly ignore it. He was right behind her. Laura froze, for a moment wishing she could just simply disappear.
But unfortunately, her powers did not seem to extend that far. She turned, looking up at him guiltily.
He was leaning casually in his own door frame, but even so, Nate still towered above her. In casual clothing, just a tight t-shirt and a pair of loose jeans, Nate somehow seemed even more intimidating than he did when he wore his FBI standard suit. The thick muscles of his arms rippled under his Black skin as he moved, and the heavy frown above his eyes did nothing to help Laura's nerves.
“Hi, Nate,” she said, trying to inject a bit of false brightness into her voice and absolutely failing. “I was just in the neighborhood...”
She trailed off, unable to think of a way to end the sentence. She was just in the neighborhood, and decided to stop by and see the person who demonstrably was not talking to her and had not been for days? She should have been able to come up with a better excuse than that, surely.
“How did it go with your custody hearing?” Nate asked, making Laura hang her head. Of course, he would remember to ask. Of course, despite everything that had happened between them lately, he was never going to be angry enough with her to forget the most important things in her life. He was just that good of a guy.
“It went great,” Laura said, allowing herself to smile just slightly. “I got weekends.”
“That’s amazing,” Nate said. The smile that crossed over his face was just as brief as hers, but it was genuine. The tension behind it wasn’t going anywhere. “Why are you here?”
Cutting right to the chase. Damn. Laura took a breath. She had a feeling that anything less than the truth was not going to convince him, not right now.
“I came here to talk,” she said. “About… well. You know.”
“I hope I do,” Nate said, raising an eyebrow. He looked her up and down, assessing. Trying to gauge whether this was going to be one more let-down, no doubt. “You’re ready to tell me the truth?”
Laura tucked a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear and nodded, swallowing nervously at the same time. She didn’t trust herself to answer him. She had a feeling her vocal chords were going to say no, all on their own.
“You’d better come in,” Nate said, moving aside to allow her through the doorway.
Laura moved through the house into a comfortable yet minimalist living room, perfectly suited to Nate's style. Everything was dark wood, the furniture outfitted in brown leather, only a few framed photographs up on a bookcase to the side of the room. Laura passed by them, catching a glimpse of Nate in his dress uniform from the day he had joined the police force. She knew he'd been a serving officer before he joined the FBI. Then there was an image of him with his parents, looking much younger, clearly a family photograph.
There was no photograph of a woman anywhere in the house, not one that he wasn't related to. Laura knew that his last relationship had ended somewhat badly, and he hadn't settled down with anybody else yet. Still, the bachelor life seemed to suit him. His home was clean and tidy, the shelves stacked with well-thumbed books. She actually envied him. He seemed so comfortable here. Her own apartment was full of second-hand, rickety furniture and bad memories. It was ironic, she thought, that she was only coming here for the first time now that their relationship was so rocky. Years of friendship, and she’d never found a reason to visit.
She took a seat on the sofa, more to keep delaying the inevitable moment than because she needed to sit. Nate settled into an armchair, set at a slight angle to the sofa, both of them facing towards a large screen television. Beside him on the coffee table was a steaming mug of coffee, and Laura found herself wishing for one. Maybe if she asked him to fix her one, that could delay the conversation even more as well...
“Well, then?” Nate asked. “Are you going to tell me?”
So much for that.
Laura took a breath. She reminded herself that she had come over here for this purpose. No matter what happened now, this had to be the right thing to do. She had already decided that so many times. She wasn't going to change her mind again, not this time. She wasn't going to get a choice. Nate was looking at her expectantly, and she needed to say something, needed to find some way to deliver the news that would soften the blow. That would make it sound more believable. That would...
“I'm psychic,” she blurted out.
Nate stared at her.
“Laura,” he said, his voice serious and ful
l of rebuke. “I've already told you I'm not going to take any more of these lies. You need to tell me the truth, right now. Or this is it, I'm not going to take any more. I'm going to go right to Rondelle and get a transfer and tell him that I have serious doubt in your abilities. Or at least, where they come from.”
“No,” Laura said, deep panic setting in already. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. She should have thought this through ahead of time, come up with some kind of speech. Prepared herself. Just blurting it out was the worst possible thing she could have done. She needed to backtrack, explain, make him see. “Nate, I'm being serious. It's not a lie this time. That's how I know things. I get these... these visions. I see what's going to happen.”
Nate stared at her again for a long period of time, or so it felt to her. It must realistically have only been a few seconds, but every moment was dragging on into eternity. At the same time, it was all moving far too quickly. She felt out of control. Like she was scrambling to keep up.
“I mean,” she said, trying to make this better, any way that she could. Trying to make up for the mistakes her mouth had already made, only by piling on more. “It makes sense, if you think about it. I mean, if you really think about it. All the things that I know. How else could I know them? I just see them before they happen. I see these visions of possible futures. They don't always come true, because we can prevent them. Sometimes they’re completely wrong. But that's okay, because it means that we made a difference. Do you see what I mean?”
“Not really,” Nate said, with a slow blink. He narrowed his eyes now, looking at her closely. She was beginning to feel like a specimen under glass. “Laura… you’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”
It was her turn to blink.
