and we can weather the great unknown

[forthsofar]

With Sabrina still recovering from all she'd had to do to save everybody, they set up a bit of a rotation in her stead, the two of them; quiet and watchful and dedicated, making sure that Nick's not left alone until she can be at his side. Rosie gets to the apartment as soon as she can, letting Charlie go to see Sabrina or head home to Newt and Kavinsky, and he does the same for her, letting her check back in with Neil. It works, because it has to.

When she arrives, Nick's sleeping--or maybe drifting, dosed up with the pills they'd given him at the hospital. Rosie checks on him, just to make sure, then busies herself with things she knows are just helpful distractions: washing the dishes they'd dirtied already; separating out the few real pieces of mail from the junk and advertisements that had piled up in what she carefully thought of as Nick's absence; staring at the book she'd brought with her and managing only to read the same two sentences, over and over again. She's putting on water for tea when she hears him start to stir. Carefully, she goes down the hallway and stops in the doorway to his room, looking in on him lying on the bed.

Something about the juxtaposition feels familiar, if distantly, a connection her mind tries to grasp and can't. She'd done this a few times already since Nick had come home, after all; that might be all it is.

"I'm here," she says, smiling faintly. "The kettle's on, if...there'll be tea, soon."

Comments

[forthsofar]

Rosie had expected him to turn on the program he'd just been talking about, to start with whatever episode was next and explain things--or correct things, more likely--as they happened, so the question surprises her for a moment. There's almost too many places to begin; too many things she's curious about and too little that she knows already.

She thinks for another minute, then smiles, something faint and a little shy. "Start with...start by telling me about your favorite thing you've ever learned," she says. "Not necessarily the thing you're best at, or the most impressive, or anything like that. But the thing that makes you happiest to know how to do. And tell me why."

She turns her head a little, looking up at him--at the line of his profile and the tangle of his dark hair. Again, there's that sense of something warm sparking deep within her, a sensation that's confusing but pleasant even so.

[awickedtime]

He thinks about that for a moment, lifting his mug to hand a sip of his tea.

"I love knowing how to astrally project," he says. "Knowing that you can go anywhere, as long as your body is safe and you stay ahead of the psychopomps."

[forthsofar]

Rosie had spent far too many hours daydreaming about adventures in foreign places, traveling as far and as often as she could and seeing everything the world had to show her. In that respect, Nick's answer is more perfect than anything else she might have expected him to say.

"That sounds wonderful," she says, grinning against the edge of her own mug before she takes a drink. "That's...that's how you got that manuscript for Sabrina, isn't it? From the bottom of the ocean?" She frowns a little recalling the last time she brought that up, only a few days prior; how she'd tried to keep him focused and present despite the pain of his injury. At least this time, their surroundings are more comfortable, more safe and secure.

"And you're definitely going to need to explain what a psychopomp is."

[awickedtime]

"It's not, actually," he says. "That was translocation, with a bathtub full of water as a gateway. I was physically there for that. With astral projection, it's just that...a projection." He takes another swallow of his tea. "Psychopomps are like...guardians. On that realm. They come after you if your soul is out of your body for too long."

[forthsofar]

"Oh, it was translocation, forgive me," she says, her tone just on the edge of sarcastic and teasing--even as she drinks in everything he's saying with genuine interest. "So astral projection is just...watching, for the most part? Going where you like, certainly, but only for so long and only as an observer. If you need to actually be somewhere, you translocate."

Rosie's eyebrows lift briefly in concern when he mentions psychopomps going after people. "Goodness. I suppose it makes sense, if they're guarding things, but...that makes it sound awfully dangerous."