Nate grunted in response, and then there was a period of silence. Laura flipped through the rest of the file and found nothing worth mentioning, shoving it back up onto the dashboard.
They were out of D.C. now, out on a nice smooth and open road that would take them a long way before they needed to think too much about directions or turn-offs. Nothing to focus on.
Nothing to talk about.
Laura cleared her throat quietly and looked out of the windscreen. Only another three hours to go before they arrived.
They would be able to think of something to fill the silence before then, right?
“So,” she started abruptly, right at the same time that Nate said “Hey,” leaving them both silent again as they each waited for the other continue. They shared an awkward chuckle that broke some of the ice, though not enough for Laura to feel as though it wouldn’t reform easily.
“Um, you go,” she said, gesturing loosely towards him.
“It was nothing,” Nate said, shaking his head. “I was just wondering how things are going with that doctor.”
“Oh, great,” Laura said, smiling briefly. It was kind of odd for them to talk about it. When they’d first partnered up, Laura had been in the throes of divorce. She hadn’t dated anyone since then – not until Chris. There hadn’t been anyone for her to tell Nate about, and it wasn’t as though she’d spoken much about Chris either, given the recent turmoil between them. “If we can get this case wrapped up before the weekend, we’re hoping to spend it together with our girls.”
Nate smiled without looking away from the road. “Sounds very domestic.”
Laura hadn’t meant it to sound like that. It was true, though, she supposed. That was the reality of it when you had a couple of kindergarteners in tow at all times. Even if she wanted their relationship to be sexy and exciting and romantic, it was kind of destined to be – yes, domestic.
“We have a lot of fun,” she said, which came out as more defensive than she had intended.
“Have you, um,” Nate started, and then stopped.
“What?” Laura asked. There was only one end she could think of for that sentence, but since Nate wasn’t a teenage girl, she was sure she must have guessed wrong.
“Had any visions about him?”
That was not what she had expected at all.
Laura looked down at her hands. Why did it feel so uncomfortable to talk about this? “No,” she said, at length. “No, I haven’t.”
“Is that a good sign?” Nate glanced at her for a moment and then back at the road.
“It’s not anything,” Laura said. “I don’t control when the visions come and I don’t really think there’s any particular rule about when or why they happen. At least, I haven’t noticed one in all these years. It could mean that I’m just not seeing the bad thing that’s about to happen.”
“Right.” Nate said. There was an uncomfortably long pause, then: “So you haven’t seen that he’s going to die, like you saw with me?”
“No,” Laura said immediately. “No, I haven’t. The shadow of death is – it’s very rare. I probably come into contact with people all the time and never see anything threatening them, even though they might die not too long after.”
“That’s kind of creepy to think about,” Nate said, and Laura regretted bringing it up.
God, she wished this elephant wasn’t in the room. Even when it wasn’t an elephant anymore because they were addressing it directly, it seemed to be hanging over their heads and changing every dynamic between them.
She just wanted it to feel the way it had before all of this. When they were just partners. Yes, she’d had to hide a huge part of herself from him – but at least it hadn’t been awkward most of the time.
She stared out of the window, not sure what to say next or where to take the conversation. What was she going to ask him about? His love life? It had been weird enough talking about hers, and last she knew, he was still in the recovery period after his longest-lasting girlfriend had broken it off. What he’d been up to lately? Probably researching the place he was supposed to transfer to when he decided not to be her partner anymore, and looking for a new place to live. The cases she’d worked on lately? That would just be a reminder of the fact that they hadn’t been working on them together.
And what else was there?
Was she supposed to start telling him all about Zach – a new discovery she hadn’t even really processed or understood herself yet?
“I didn’t really mean creepy,” Nate said, after another long silence. He sounded guilty, like he’d messed up. But he hadn’t messed up. It was Laura who had messed up. She was the one making all the problems here. If she just didn’t have this ability in the first place, none of this would have happened. “It’s just weird to think about. I’m still getting used to it.”
“I know,” Laura said quietly. “I’m sorry I dumped all this on you.”
“I asked you to,” Nate pointed out. “I wanted to know so that we could work together better as partners. I still feel that way. It’s a good thing that I know, so I can help you out with it and you don’t have to pretend about your leads anymore. We’re going to be better at solving this case.”
“Yeah,” Laura agreed, even though she had so many doubts spiraling through her head that it was a wonder he couldn’t hear them out loud.
For a start, her visions hadn’t exactly been playing ball lately. She’d started seeing visions of the past, not the future, and she had no idea why. She’d been unable to trigger the visions when she needed them. She’d seen the same thing over and over in tiny, unreadable fragments, instead of getting new insights that would help her progress her understanding of the case. She’d even had visions trigger in instances that she couldn’t explain how or why they’d set off. None of it made sense anymore.
She had no idea what was going on with her head or why, and she couldn’t be sure that anything she saw was actually going to help her with the case.
But that was something she was going to keep to herself, because she didn’t want Nate to realize that not only had she thrust a monumental secret on him and asked him to keep it from their superiors – but she’d also done it at a time when her visions were less reliable than they’d ever been.
She just had to hope that by some miracle, everything worked the way it was supposed to this time – and they caught the killer fast, so Nate could see he’d made the right choice to come back as her partner.