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Oenone--he was in civilian form, but the only name he could really use was Oenone, because Paul Wyndham was dead or at least disappeared with corrupted Spinel--put down the baby name book when he heard someone knock on the door. Expected would’ve been the angry redhead--Kaatje--or Finn, who seemed to know more about who Oenone had been before than Oenone could even guess at. Unexpected was Tallulah, who was not actually expected for a few days, if ever. That didn’t stop him from rolling off the bed and springing to the door, overexcited and hopeful.

No matter how many times he’d told himself that he didn’t expect her to forgive him or to understand, the fact remained he didn’t remember being a serial killer. He didn’t remember anyone he’d known as Spinel, not even in those last few minutes when he knew (because he’d been told) that he had been purified. It was like hearing nightmare stories of yourself. It seemed to him that it’d be unfair if she hated him now--and yet, he knew he’d deserve it if she did, for the things he couldn’t remember.

He opened the door and there she was, as beautiful as--well, not the day they’d met, but as the day he’d taken her out to the Ocean’s Favor for her birthday. As the day she’d pulled him out of his study carrel for coffee. “Tallulah,” he said, smiling at her, hoping--hoping that this wasn’t a visit to say goodbye. “Yeah, yeah--come in, I’m looking at names, since Paul obviously isn’t an option anymore.” He stood to the side and waited for her to choose where she wanted to sit, and then took the other chair once he’d recovered the book Kaatje had forced on him at five o’clock that morning.

“Uh… What did you want to talk about?”

He nodded, understanding without being told as much that he didn’t look like himself. That had been something he’d been warned about--no one would ever know that Paul Wyndham and… whoever he was now… were the same person. Part of it would be that, although he looked just the same to himself in the mirror, the glamor that had separated Paul and Spinel would now separate Paul from... himself. “Kaatje said she would ask you if you could get some of my things,” he said, “but in the meantime, she dragged me out to… I’m not actually sure what she was up to, but she wanted me to tell you ‘you’re welcome’?”

The haircut was nice, anyway. Feeling his hair brushing the back of his neck had been anxiety-inducing, and after the panic attack he’d had when he’d seen a particular redhead--he wasn’t willing to risk another. He still didn’t know what it was about the man that had terrified him so, and probably--if Kaatje was telling the truth--never would. “She kept calling me Niklaus, I guess for convenience, but, uh, I’m not Dutch. So I suppose the frontrunners are… Nicholas, Daniel, James, and Andrew. Right now. I’m into the S names, so I’ll have a definitive list soon.” He held up the book, and then after a moment’s thought, offered it to her.

He frowned, then. “I think I should apologize. For lying to you. I don’t remember exactly why I did it, but it’s not exactly hard to extrapolate.” He didn’t expect forgiveness, but saying it seemed gauche. Knowing she knew, though, made him feel a little better.

“If you like Nicholas and Kaatje likes Nicholas, it looks like I’m Nicholas,” he said, and he set the book aside. To tell the truth, he liked the name for reasons that he doubted she or Kaatje shared--maybe they hadn’t read the Abhorsen books and didn’t know the ramifications of the character, but he did. He smiled at her, and took her hand when she offered it. The ramifications of what she said, I love you, present-tense and therefore real, weren’t lost on him either.

He kissed the back of her hand, resisted the urge to pull her to him and kiss her; she was familiar and he wanted her close to him, forever, but despite her words he still worried she would get up and bolt, or be a hallucination, or--something. “I remember the youma,” he said, brow furrowing as he laced their fingers together. “I remember being terrified of you. I don’t remember why, or why it wouldn’t have attacked me.” His smile was lopsided and uncertain, but he still managed it.

“I’m not sure what I should be saying,” he admitted, running his thumb over her palm. “I--mostly I’ve been thinking of other things, so I didn’t have to think of… uncertainties. Does that make sense?”

“Wellington,” he said. More literary references. Maybe she’d figure it out eventually. “Names’ve sort’ve been my pet project, you know, I have to have one eventually--not sure how it’ll matter but at this point I wouldn’t be surprised of Kaatje or Finn knew a mob boss…” She was leaning towards him, her fingertips running along his jawline, and he wished his breath hadn’t caught in his throat like he was some kind of inexperienced teenager but it had.

Tallulah had always had the most stunning brown eyes, and that was no less true now for the fact that he was no longer corrupt than it had been when he was Spinel. Perhaps it was truer. He closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to hers. Only for a moment, and then he pulled away and said, “If you want to give this time, I understand.” Because it would suck, and it would hurt, but he loved her. He’d wait. And if she decided she could do better, he would damn well agree. As if this moment, Nicholas Wellington was someone whose future prospects depended entirely on how lucky he was--and historically, the answer was not very.

“I love you,” he told her, because he thought it might matter.

He leaned in to kiss her again, a gentle and chaste thing just at the corner of her mouth. “I don’t remember specifics, but I know I would do anything to keep you safe,” he said, sliding a hand into her hair, which was as soft and silky as it ever had been. His grip was gentle, more a presence than a hold, just--touching. Knowing that she was there. It was more reassuring than a hundred hours of Finn’s random confirmations that he was purified, no one was going to make him go back, Avalon was never going to be able to find out his civilian form, they’d find a way to get his medical degree back--

Well, whatever. Here was Tallulah. His girl. He smiled at her and pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek again. “So’m I,” he said. “Not to get too heavy about things, but you’re pretty much it for what I’m sure of about my life as Nick. I want you in my life, Tallulah. In whatever capacity you’re willing to allow me.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, not sure if she was making a joke. “Tallulah, I’m pretty sure I knew it wasn’t Lyme disease as soon as you told me that was what you had,” he said. Like, he was focusing on being a trauma surgeon, not a pathologist or really someone who diagnosed diseases at all--but even he could tell the difference between a debilitating disease and what she’d had when they met. Still, if it was a space wasting disease, that probably explained why it didn’t look, talk, or sound like a duck.

“Just do me a favor and let me know if you start feeling worse,” he said, wondering if it’d be too much to pull her into his lap. He wanted--needed--to feel her there, the solid reality of her, but things weren’t about him right now. Sure, Tallulah had lied about her illness, but he’d lied about murdering people and actively trying to kill her and her friends. There were two entirely different levels of betrayal here, and his was deeper than hers by far.

The thought made him feel--twitchy, short of breath, anxious. “Can I hold you,” he asked, his hands dropping down to her hips. “Please?”

He tucked her close against his chest. The weight of her was comforting, not quite everything he needed but much of it; he kissed the top of her head and waited for the tight, terrified feeling to go away, tried to match his breathing to hers. “Thanks,” he said, pressing his cheek against the part in her hair, feeling her breathe. He inhaled the familiar floral scent of her hair and reminded himself that, if nothing else, he could be reacting to the fact that his entire life was gone. He could bump into his mother on the street and she wouldn’t know him from Adam.

“Thanks,” Nick repeated, curled around her in the chair like she was the only thing anchoring him to the real world, and maybe she was, how could he be sure. A world where there was nothing of his family left for him, for all that he was still alive, certainly did not feel very real…

His eyes narrowed at the thought of his family. He knew, roughly, where Raleigh and his mother could be. Shay had disappeared, though, and--maybe Tallulah knew where his sister had gone and maybe she didn’t, but either way, he wasn’t going to bring it up now. He was going to sit here and breathe until he felt like he could breathe. “So,” he said, “What are your plans for the day?”