Reaching Salvation: Post-Acer Part 4

"Bloody hell. You sure?" Tom asked, white eyes widening.

"One hundred percent." Nathan murmured quietly before muttering something else. "And it could help Heidi."

"I didn't think there was anything wrong with her Flow, just the fact she turned eighteen. Same happened to me," Tom replied.

"Part of my peace offering was to help her learn to control it." Nathan stated carefully. "I want to just double check whether it's all in her head or if there was anything wrong."

"It can help Eithne as well." Nathan noted.

"Good for him," Tom grunted.

Nathan sighed in frustration before glancing at his comrade. "Let's go see if it can help Heidi..."

Tom remained indifferent to Nathan's sigh. What did he care? He moved the earth the two were standing on over to Heidi.

Once they were near Heidi, Nathan coughed to get her attention.

"What? Are we leaving already?" Heidi asked, irritation surfacing in her voice as she cracked an eye open to look at Nathan and Tom from where she was seated.

Nathan shook his head his dull gaze on Heidi. "Just a test." he said his hand unclenching as he held out the gem. "Touch this and tell me if you feel... anything."

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OOC: If there's anything wrong with her Flow then the gem will fix it.

OOC: There's nothing wrong with it persay, she just can't control the power jump.

Heidi poked the gem with an index finger, giving Nathan a questioning look. "Okayi..."

"Hold it in your hand." Nathan suggested. He handed Heidi the gem before stepping back and folding his arms.

---

OOC: Yeah that was what I thought, but Nathan wants to be sure.

Heidi held it, though nothing seemed to happen. "What's supposed to be happening?"

Nathan surveyed it with IA and he sighed before taking the gem back.

"Don't worry." He answered before looking at Tom. "Looks like we were right. It's all in her head."

"What wassss in yourheadssssss?" One of the serpents asked curiously.

Heidi scowled at Nathan, picking up a small rock and throwing it at him. "I'm not crazy, you bastard."

Nathan caught the rock expertly before letting it fall.

"I never said you were crazy. I said that there's something affecting you. And because of that, whatever it is, you're holding yourself back from being able to access your full power without giving in to your primal blood lust." He responded to her.

Heidi fell quiet, searching through her pockets for her pocket knife out of habit. Not finding it, she dug her fingers into the ground in frustration. "Okay, genius, now what's affecting me?"

"You feel inadequate." Nathan summarised. "You blame yourself for what happened to Benji and Mary and you think the same will happen to Simon." He added his face a look of understanding. Probably the nicest expression anyone would've ever seen him have.

"And despite the fact you really aren't at fault for it, it's holding you back."

"Neither of you had younger siblings, or people you had to take care of because they couldn't take care of themselves, right? You keep saying it's not my fault, but it is," Heidi stated, her voice even. Nathan's kind expression was lost on her, as her gaze was turned towards the ground rather than at him and Tom.

Nathan walked closer to Heidi and slowly placed a hand on her shoulder. "None of my siblings survived the storm. But up until the tournament I wished I had a chance to say goodbye." He stopped hear and tried to stop the emotions coming forth. "Before the storm, I'd gotten into an argument with my family... and I ran away from home. Two days they must've been in hell wondering if I was okay and then I never saw them again."

"I had a sister who was a year younger than me and two baby twins a boy and a girl..." He closed his eyes here. "I blamed myself for a long time. If I'd been home maybe I could've got them away... maybe I could've at least saved the twins..."

He moved his hand here and placed it under Heidi's chin to lift her face to his. "But I realised when I met Luke and Kira that my family wouldn't want me to live like I was. I've never once forgotten them and they're with me everyday in my heart...ask yourself, if Benji and Mary could see you now. Would they see their sister? Or would they see a shell?"

He closed his eyes to blink back the emotion that had threatened to leak from his eyes at the memory of his family. "Don't ever forget them, but when you're remembering them, remember the person you used to be when you had them."

Heidi wasn't really sure how to respond to that. Nathan being emotional for her sake? It was weird. Let alone how close to her he was and oh, god was he going to cry? The blonde didn't feel very comfortable with this situation at all.

She pushed herself to her feet, averting her faze from Nathan and Tom. "I dunno what they'd see. Certainly not their sister, though. Once upon a time I had a much longer fuse and less of a swearing habit," she stated, keeping emotion out of her voice.

Nathan didn't make much sense. If he'd found the urge to forgive himself after he met Luke and Kira, why'd he try to kill them? People were confusing. The more that Nathan and Tom, especially the first, worked their way into her head, the more she wanted to go back to the village.

Nathan shrugged. "I've given you the solution and the training, the rest is down to you." He said calmly. Almost as if flicking a switch he stopped using empathy before looking at Tom and Melaney.

"We'll start heading home in half an hour."

Relief washed across Heidi's face upon hearing that they were finally going home. She missed Simon a lot.

A frown quickly settled on her face again as she remembered what she was actually going back to. She was going to have to put up with that dumbass Joey again, along with his constant nagging.

Tom kept his poker face. It mildly irritated him that Nathan was better than him at the therapeutic things.

"I'm ready whenever," the blind boy replied, shrugging.