Of course she did – Marlene couldn’t do anything or go anywhere without creating a scene or being [i]damn[/i] sure no one forgot her participation in anything… Nathan always despised that of her because he saw the need to leave an impression on someone as a weakness. He usually liked to float by, doing whatever he pleased and never missing oppurtunities. But everyone in his life could either support him and stay out of his way – or shove it. And Marcy had had the fortuitous chance to experience both ends of Nathan’s tolerance spectrum. 

He came to, recognizing the surroundings after a few flutters of his eyelids. The calculated beep of the IV machine promised him the consequences of his actions. It reminded him of when he used to come home late, as high as could be, sneaking upstairs. He knew that as soon as he made it into that room and shut the door, he was in the clear. Nate would pray for the voyage up the stairs, carefully out of the path of his parents, to be an uninterrupted one. After an undetected entrance into the house, as he stepped through the door of his room, he knew there would be no consequences for his actions. But this was the opposite of what came to his mind in the present, as he registered the emotion on Alina’s face. When those red and blue lights flashed behind him, reflected in his rearview mirror, the silver being displayed in between, his heartbeat increased to match the speed of the lights’ flash. What was the pattern? Blue, red, silver? Red, blue, silver? No, neither, the lights were all flashing together. The car reeked, but what was he going to do? Drive away? Hope the trooper wouldn’t catch up? Right. 
Consequences, a racing heart, red and blue lights whose fear had now been morphed into the wrath of a woman, what had changed? 

Mad? No, worried? No, confused? Maybe?

“He’s awake,” her contrived voice murmured. He knew if Marcy were in his head, she’d be questioning how contrived Alina’s orgasms were, too. 
Nate wanted to say her name: Marcy. But her memory, her scent was ruined by Alina’s interference. The two’s existence in his life never mingled, and they never would. Until now it wasn’t even a realization that the two women existed in the same century, the same lifetime. 
Maybe because he had been so many different people all his life, and they had experienced different somebodies. 

Nate turned to his left, and in the bed beside him was a bruised little girl. But her life-detecting machine beeped half a second off from his. He wondered if it was a half a second before or half a second behind… Save the president or his unknown company first? He fumbled, searching for the remote to raise the bed up into a sitting position but he saw double and just felt the thin air.

“What happened?” Perhaps that was the most expected and neutral thing to say. Nathan had become quite efficient at not incriminating himself and he wasn’t in the right mind to think on his feet. Besides, he didn’t know how much she knew. 

What was she going to do, divorce him? Like her mother would allow that. He heard them on the phone quite often, remotely of course, he had her calls recorded. 

“He’s so distant sometimes, mom.”

“He’s a man, Ali. Just keep him happy and try not to seek him out too much. Let him come to you.”

“What, when he wants sex?”

“Well, yeah. You pay a price to have power. Sometimes that’s giving up things women really want like attention. Just accept it. Make him feel like he’s in control.”

Nate tried, he really did. To make her feel like more than an A-line in pearl earrings. Sometimes he felt she was more than that, and he appreciated her for all she’d beaten out of him. Her judgmental silence morphed him into the boring, mannerly leader he was today. 

“Babe?” he mouthed with a soft pass of air on his lips as he reached for her. It would tender her, knock her from the pedestal she’d put herself on during the time he’d been knocked out. ‘I’m a good wife’. She’d probably told herself. ‘He’s lucky to have me. I support and understand him.’