[color=Silver][CENTER][h1][b]Natalie Ellis[/b][/h1][/CENTER][/color]
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Natalie was glad that she'd finally got it all off her chest for a about a second, before the regret seeped in. She wasn't used to talking to people anymore. And even when she was somewhat used to it, she had been awful at it. She just said everything she felt. Everything she hoped. Tact, or the ability to dress something that you wanted to say up, where no longer skills Natalie possessed.

He had gone to help somebody with a dropped plate of food.  She was thankful for this. She'd have a little time to try to calm down. All this time baming her inability to live a normal life on Arianna, or Project Lion. Maybe it was her. Maybe everything would have been fine if she had let Archie see the ugly sides of her, and relied upon him to carry her through this all by himself. Maybe it was her choices and decisions that were stopping her from living the life she wanted. Was it even the life she wanted? Yes. That's one thing she was sure of. But at the same time it scared her. She wasn't ready for it. And she definitely didn't think she deserved it.

She was resting her head in her hand, staring down at the table when she came back, and looked up at him. From this close, with this comparatively little makeup, and in this mood, it was actually properly noticeable for the first time how deep the bags under her eyes were, and how tired she looked. This wasn't fatigue. It was something deeper. You don't get those eyes from a few nights of poor sleep. Those eyes take years to get.

She listened to him silently. Looking away more often than not. Those weren't words she was surprised or shocked to hear., but neither were they what she was hoping for. But after he finished, she smiled, and her eyes brightened a little, which surprised even herself. The hard part of the reunion that she had literally made herself suck worrying about was over and it hadn't upset her enough that she'd cried in public though it had come close. Result.

"Thanks, Archie. I just had to get that out, and I'm glad it didn't mess things up too much....I'm not good at this. And I'm sick of being scared. After this assembly thing, I promise I'll tell you about myself. I owe it to you and maybe just telling somebody might help me. Yeah, we should be friends first. I'm not used to having them, either, so I should at least try and get that right first. Thanks for being patient with me."