( closed ) Mama, now I'm coming home

[bookkeeper]

WHO: Nathan’s Drake, Elena Fisher
WHERE: Heropa 006
WHEN:
WHAT: Cassandra Morgan’s journal has made its landing :(
WARNINGS: Sad things

Nate had said ten minutes and he’d meant it. She hadn’t thought of it as an emergency, figured it was just some journal, a nobody’s journal, that contained past news of Sir Francis Drake that they already knew. It was more than just that, this was his mother’s journal. It was all Nate had left of the woman he barely remembered; brown hair, blue eyes, a sadness lingering and unshakable. But he’d been too young to understand.

Ten minutes.

How did his mother’s journal make it here? And why?

Ten minutes.

Elena had already opened it and looked inside. She likely had questions. He would have to be honest with her—no, he should be honest with her. He shouldn’t hide anything else, not the way he’d kept Sam buried so deeply inside. They were going to be married, it wouldn’t be fair to keep shoving those skeletons in his closet further inside. Besides, what can he say? That Cassandra Morgan is just some no name treasure hunter and someone he looked up to while growing up and was following her example? Half of it was true, though she wasn’t just a “no name”.

Letting himself into the house, his shoes are toed off and his keys are dropped into the bowl by the door. “Elena..?”

His heart’s pounding. He can already feel the sweat dampening his palms, absently wiping his hands over denim before shoving them into the front pockets of his jeans, trying to act natural, casual, like this is nothing.

Comments

[storyseeker]

"Hey." She hops up immediately from her seat at the kitchen table, only there because it had seemed silly to stand around waiting in her own home. But she'd been too keyed up for much else; whatever this was, it was serious, and important enough to Nate that he'd rushed right home.

She can make a few guesses about what it's about, but she's not sure any of them are correct. Better to hear it from him.

"I'm right here." She comes into the foyer and gives him a quick squeeze. Mystery package or no, she's still here, everything's okay. Right?

[bookkeeper]

He's relieved that she's right there, meeting him halfway. Only one arm goes around her, half squeezes in response to her quick embrace, and he's sparing a brief look to the kitchen entrance over her head. Clearly his thoughts are elsewhere. The package has to be in there, on the table, right? Ready and waiting for him. Or that's where Nate suspects that she'd put it.

“You’re not working today?” Small talk. That’s safe. Yeah, totally safe.

Wait, was she supposed to be working today?

[storyseeker]

"I was. Working from home." She shrugs. Work isn't much of a consideration now, but it's fine. She's not on deadline. This is more important.

"It's in there," she says, nodding toward the kitchen and inadvertently reading his mind. "I didn't look through it any more."

[bookkeeper]

“It shouldn’t even be here,” he answers, words a quiet mutter. It should be tucked away in a box with the cross and his prison clothes, among other items he’d collected during his time with Sam. Once Sam had “died”, that was it, everything and anything had been locked away and buried, as if burying the past with his brother’s death.

Nate can’t remember the last time he’d looked through his mother’s notes.

Also, why and how in the hell was it like Elena could read his mind? It had to be one of those wacky reporter traits.

Forcing out a slow exhale, it was time for him to step away from her and head for the kitchen, heart beating furiously all over again once the contact between the two of them disconnected.

[storyseeker]

She lets him go, but follows him at a moderate distance—far enough to give him space, close enough that her presence is a support—she hopes, because she's not sure yet what he needs. All she knows is that, clearly, he's rattled.

The journal is sitting on the center of the table, placed neatly like a centerpiece. It's old, she can tell, and reminiscent of ones she's seen him make and use in the field, going right back to El Dorado. This one isn't his, but he knows it.

[bookkeeper]

‘CSM’, those initials sit on the front of the journal, an off-white that’s seen better days, some parts marked in faded gray. He’s reminded of his own journals, most of them dark and leatherbound, and this is where he’d picked it up—his mother. All of her notes, her papers and her journal, he’d kept them secured in the one box, why was only the journal here and not the rest of it?

Nate pauses once he reaches the table. Still he doesn’t touch it. He rests his hands flat on the tabletop and stares down at it. The tension is obvious in the lift of his shoulders while the rest of him sags, braces his weight on his palms. Like when he’d learned that Sam was alive, through Chloe, such news had rocked his world as he’d gone so many years believing otherwise. And now here sits his mother’s work. He’d been hoping to never have to face this again. Maybe open the box the next time he moved out of Key West to double check everything was there and then never look upon it again until the next move after that.

He’d hoped to always deal with this alone, never share it with anyone.

“Was there a return address on the envelope?”

[storyseeker]

"Yeah. The Porter facility."

She reaches over to the counter to pick up and wave a padded envelope. She hadn't remembered the address of that place, actually, but the brief note had been a good enough reminder.

"I guess things have been showing up. Instead of people, it's bringing in stuff," she says. After a moment, she sets it down again and moves back to his side.

Nate's always had a reasonably good poker face, despite sucking at poker. It's not that he can hide his feelings; god no, the man wears his heart on his sleeve. But...in the right moment, he's good at disguising them. Making people think he really feels something else. But not now. Right now, his face is naked with emotion; she just wishes she knew what emotion it is.

She rests a hand gently on his shoulder. "You wanna tell me what it is?"

[bookkeeper]

'Instead of people'. The fleeting thought that Sam, Harry, or even his mother could be brought here, it rattles him. Traps his breath in his throat. Nate doesn't even know what he'd do if any of those three randomly showed up. He'd tensed at the same time he'd felt her hand on his shoulder and hopefully it didn't come off that her support and touch wasn't welcome. It was, always.

He has to wet his lips before he trust himself to speak. It still probably isn't a good time to try his voice when he does, the words low, faintly hoarse. "Cassandra Morgan. CSM. It's my mom's journal."

[storyseeker]

And just like that, everything about his reaction makes sense. Her eyes go wide and her hand goes a little tight before she forces it to relax and rub his shoulder smoothly.

"Then this is for you, not me." There's a pang of guilt, and she wishes she hadn't read something so personal, so private--except at the same time, she can't regret it, because even a quick look had been a connection to his past, something he rarely allows. "I didn't go through all of it, but it looks a lot like the journals you make."

[bookkeeper]

"Yeah..." He still doesn't want to reach out and touch it. If he does, will it disappear? "She's where I got it from. I guess I just wanted to...carry on with traditions. I don't remember there being many, other than we moved around a lot. She was... She wasn't always there. Not just with always out on explorations. I mean..."

Trailing off while still staring down at the journal, he touches his fingers to his temple.

[storyseeker]

After a moment, she leans forward and presses a kiss to his temple on the other side, lingering there for a moment.

"Do you want to look through it?" she asks gently. "If you want to put it away for now, that's okay too. You don't have to do anything."

[bookkeeper]

“I should... I should probably explain,” he says then instead of answering her question. “You know about Sam. You know about my dad, how he left us at the orphanage. It was after she died.”

Now Nate goes to drop down into the chair that’s half out. He makes the call, reaches for the journal with its familiar edges, brushes his thumb gently over the initials before opening to the first page. It was disrespectful and rude and unnecessary to make the earlier gesture, now that he thinks about it and realizes. His mother had lived a difficult life during those years that he can remember of her; she must’ve suffered alone, had no support from even her husband.

“She took her own life. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was too young to understand why and I always assumed she was not right in the head. Or maybe she couldn’t deal with two sons on top of everything.” He stares down at the name of Henry Avery in her writing so very much like his own. “She was sick. I remember that. She was sick a lot. They said it was incurable, whatever she had, I can’t really remember, and others said it was depression. Didn’t matter so much in the 70s and 80s; she was called crazy on more than one occasion, while we were looked down upon because of it.” The care for mental health back then was almost nonexistent, nowhere near as in-depth as it was today.

[storyseeker]

Elena stares, completely still, listening closely, because what else can she do? She'd known he had a rough start in life, beyond rough, but she hadn't guessed something like this. Her heart aches horribly, for him and for the mother who'd never gotten to see him grow up or know what kind of man he'd become.

His father had left them after this? When he was all they had left?

"Oh, Nate." She lets out a shaky breath and grips his hand tight in hers. "I'm so sorry."

[bookkeeper]

His father was a real piece of work. Sam would have a better choice of wording for him since they never got along, ever, while Nate was more in the state of mind where he had no problems with the idea that his father was as dead to him as his mother was, of course for different reasons.

“It’s alright.” His hand squeezes back. He doesn’t let go. “It’s really hard to pinpoint when she got sick. For all I know, it could’ve been post-partum depression that never got better, after I was born.” Did that mean he blamed himself? Sometimes. Other times he genuinely just didn’t understand where everything had gone so wrong.

“There was an old woman named Evelyn. They used to work together. She’s the one who gave us the journal.” Another page is flipped through. “Sam and I, we broke into her mansion to retrieve it because most of mom’s belongings were sold off by my dad. She could’ve told us so much but, before we got to talking, she’d called the cops not knowing who we were. Next thing we knew, she was on the ground and unresponsive; cardiac arrest.”

Nate gets to a page where an old Polaroid sits and he picks it up, turns it over, staring down at the image of himself and Sam, both much younger. Smiling. Goofy looking. He hands it over to her.

[storyseeker]

He'd been so little. How could he know? But it wasn't his responsibility or Sam's, even as they older brother. Because they were children. But was there no one else who could have helped her? Had anyone even tried?

The next part of the story is more unexpected, gets her to blink in surprise. "I..." What does she say to that? Offer more sympathy, for being at the wrong place, wrong time? Instead, she accepts the photo—and this gets a smile. Her first introduction to Sam, and her first and only look at the boy Nate used to be. God, he was so young.

"Look at you." She runs a thumb over the Polaroid. "You look happy in this."

[bookkeeper]

He glances at it and then glances at her face to catch that smile, her expression. A quiet little snort is his response as he returns to the journal to go to the next page, careful with the document that’s been taped down. History has always found its way into their hands. It’s still a thrill for him, almost surreal, that something that’s centuries old is right in front of him.

“I was,” he answers, thinking back on that memory, on Sam’s happy and disbelieving surprise at everything Evelyn had been collecting. Shame neither of them had gone back after she’d passed. Shame they’d never kept up with any of it, either through the black market or simple auctions where people would see the treasures as junk, home decor. “You would’ve been too, if you could’ve seen everything she was hoarding. And the place was huge.”

[storyseeker]

There's a story in their faces, longer and deeper than the short version she's getting now. She wishes he could tell it properly, with laughter and reminiscence instead of underneath the shadow of loss. But if he could, everything about it would be different, wouldn't it?

"Sounds like exactly the sort of place you'd be drawn to. I wouldn't be surprised if you had some kind of radar for it even that young." She smiles fondly, a little wistfully. "What happened afterward?"

[bookkeeper]

“Maybe. It was all Sam, too, you know?” Well, no, she wouldn’t. But he did. “What happened after?”

Nate blows out a breath and slowly leans back in the chair, staring at the journal for a moment.

“Where do I begin? We carried on with what she’d been getting her hands dirty with, that being Francis Drake, and took on the last name. We were no longer Morgan. We were Nate and Sam Drake.” She knew that story, it was after all how they’d met. “Sam was in and out of jail. Which, honestly, felt like nothing new. Met Sully years later in Cartagena. Had probably my first, real stint in prison at fifteen.”

He shrugs a shoulder and shakes his head at the memory of Sully coming in to get his sorry ass out.

“I guess like her, I never could stay in the same place for long.”

[storyseeker]

It isn't that things suddenly click into place and Elena suddenly knows him. She already knows him; the man he is today, who he's been for a while now. But for the first time, she understands how he got here.

"She doesn't sound like such a bad person to take after." She smiles faintly, gaze drifting toward the journal and then back to Nate. "I can think of worse."

Like his father, for starters. But this isn't the time to get into that.

"Does Sully know about all this?"

[bookkeeper]

"No," he shakes his head, "she was great. When she was around. The bedtime stories were some of my best memories. Other times it was shouting matches with my dad, her sad blue eyes, the anger, the crying." And that was where Sam would step in to take over and take Nate away from all of that.

A thoughtful sound. "Sullivan knew bits and pieces. He never knew the whole story." Not like she did, now.

[storyseeker]

He doesn't have to say more. Elena knows from experience that more words don't always paint a fuller picture, and she can see this one pretty clearly.

"I'm glad you told it to me." She reaches out to take his hand, lacing their fingers together. "That you trusted me with it."

He was backed into a corner with the arrival of the journal, sure. But Nathan Drake has slipped out of trickier situations than that. If he'd wanted to keep it private, he could have.

[bookkeeper]

He sure could've kept it all secret. But he'd made a promise to himself: no more secrets. She didn't deserve to be kept in the dark, as painful as it was sometimes to open those rickety old doors and air out the cobwebs of his past that he'd been so set on keeping buried.

Nate squeezes her hand once their fingers are laced, bringing hers up to kiss the back of it. "You're all I got," he speaks against her skin, looking at her. "You're my family now."

[storyseeker]

Elena's quiet for a moment, but this time it's because her throat is a little choked up. Also, is it dusty in here? Nope, it's just the tears. She blinks them back and squeezes his hand in rerturn.

"Same here, cowboy," she says, voice a little husky, and she means every word. "To the end of the line."

[bookkeeper]

( END SCENE. SOBS INTO CEREAL )