Room 507, Sunday night

[nadiathesaint]

Just two nights ago, Nadia had been leading Walter back to her room like this, and she'd been smiling and happy.

It was a marked difference from right now, when she was stressed, exhausted, and really nervous.

Somehow, she thought that pointing out that it wasn't like he'd never beaten the crap out of her wasn't going to help anything.

[ooc: locked to Walter, plz.]

Comments

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter followed Nadia back to her room without comment, smoking a couple of cigarettes along the way and reminding himself that there wasn't any reason to be anything but concerned for her.

Hell, he'd done worse to her.

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia lead the way in and tossed the sack onto her bed, ignoring what was left of her closet door for the time being. She pulled out her desk chair, and sat down backwards in it so she could rest her arms on the back and her head on her arms. "Right. So. Debt."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"Right. Debt." He sat down on her bed and pulled his feet up off the floor. He still had a few marks on his ankles from his first meeting with Furrball, and he'd not forgotten.

[nadiathesaint]

The entire walk back from town, Nadia had been trying to work out how to explain it to Walter. She still wasn't sure. "It was while you were sick. The doctors couldn't find anything that would help. We--I--thought you were dying."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"So this debt has something to do with me...?" That didn't make him feel even the tiniest bit better. "What do Schrodinger, some person he knows, and I have to do with each other and your debt?"

Other than that Schrodinger supposedly knew him in the future...?

[nadiathesaint]

"He showed up at the clinic that Saturday. Said he knew someone who could help, then brought in this tv thing for communication. On it was this doctor. He was kind of creepy, but he said he knew how to cure you. But that he'd need something from me first. I . . . I really wasn't sure, but then you got worse, and I had to agree. He--I think he knew about Rambaldi."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter's feet hit the floor. "You let someone who knows about Rambaldi use me to get to you? What did he do to me?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia picked her head up off her arms. "Well he made you not dead, for one thing!"

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"How? No one's ever told me that. And why didn't you tell me?" He paced away from her to the opposite side of the room. Secrets. Hadn't either of them learned how badly secrets went for them?

[nadiathesaint]

"I don't know how. I'm not a brain surgeon. But Dr. Wilson is the one who actually did whatever it was, and he's a good person. He wouldn't have let it hurt you."

He'd asked her twice if she was sure about the whole thing, but that was besides the point. "And I didn't tell you because I knew it would upset you. Like right now."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Brain surgeon? What?

He leaned against the wall, pressing his hands between it and his body. "You're telling me that Dr. Wilson did something to my brain on the direction of some stranger who knows about Rambaldi and that you agreed to pay his price for it.

"Did you even know what the price would be?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia shook her head. "He wouldn't say. Just that he knew my brain worked . . . differently than other people's, and he wanted to learn more about it. And that he didn't want me dead."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter kept his body weight on his hands to keep them where they were. "And you don't know what was done to me in exchange for this dodgy agreement? I can just go talk to Dr. Wilson and ask him to tell me everything. I think he probably will."

[nadiathesaint]

"If that's what you want." Nadia rubbed her arms. "All I could think was that you were going to die. And I couldn't let that happen."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"But Rambaldi terrifies you!" He wasn't sure which had him more bothered - that she'd colluded in some stranger messing with his head, or that she'd done something like that for him.

[nadiathesaint]

"Well, maybe he shouldn't. Because right now, other than the fact that I embarrassed the crap out of myself this weekend, I'm not seeing that much of a downside. I'm fine. Conner's okay. You're fine."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"Except that you're telling me that I'm the one who injected you with whatever it was, and I definitely do not remember doing that. Does that sound like a coincidence?"

He'd done terrible things to her and he knew they hadn't been his fault, but this... what was this?

[nadiathesaint]

"And then I spent the weekend thinking that Pip was a dwarf, Jamie was a 'half-ling' and Pippi was a cat! I don't know what's going on, and I don't know if I can trust what remember of what happened. I just know that I'm not going to apologize for a decision I made that might have saved your life!"

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"One question, then."

He took a deep breath and tried to quell the sick feeling in his stomach at the thought of having some stranger mucking about in his head. Again. "Did you think then that I would have wanted you to make that decision?"

[nadiathesaint]

"You are absolutely certain about this decision, Nadia?"

No, she wasn't.

"I promised him he wouldn't die."

"I promised you I wouldn't let you die. Not if I could do anything about it."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"That wasn't what I asked." Walter pushed away from the wall and headed for the door. "But I think it answered the question."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia jumped to her feet and tried to run after him. "If our positions were reversed, would you have done differently?"

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter rounded on her and held up a finger accusatorily, then dropped it.

He answered quietly. "I don't know. Would you want me to-" He cast around for something that would be as upsetting to her as the idea of having someone in his head was to him. "Would you want me to give you to Arvin Sloane if it could save your life?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia's heart jumped at the idea of it, and she swallowed hard. "Would it stop you if I didn't?"

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

The answer should be yes, he'd respect her wishes. The truth was something else. "I don't know."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia nodded, leaning against the wall. "I couldn't let you die. I'm not sorry about that. I am sorry you had to find out like that."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," he repeated. "I don't know what to think about this."

[nadiathesaint]

Well.

If he ended up hating her, at least he was alive to do it.

"Okay. Let me know when you've figured it out. I'll wait."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"I'll let you know."

Walter pulled her door open and walked out. He wanted to be reasonable about this, and see her side, but he just couldn't yet.

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and flopped back onto her bed to stare at the ceiling.

She thought about what had happened over the weekend. All the people she'd talked to. All the people she'd threatened. How nice it was to think that fulfilling a destiny was a good thing.

The look on Jamie's face when he was denying he had furry toes.

Then she rolled over, buried her face in her pillow, and laughed until she cried.

Hey, it was dealing.