He nodded.
“Let’s go rest.”
There were a few people still in the break room having lunch. I paid them no mind, intent on moving us across the space toward what we had affectionately termed the “Crying Closet.”
“I’ll block out the schedule,” Tabitha followed behind us, breaking off to her desk where she woke her computer and began swiping.
I pushed open the door and maneuvered us into the small space, settling Finn onto the oversized Eames style chair. I reached into his pocket without ceremony and pulled out the small tin. Tabitha appeared at the door and retrieved a bottle of water from the cabinet, untwisting the cap before handing it to me.
I pressed a tablet into one of Finn’s hands and held the bottle out so he could take it. He took a few sips after swallowing the medication and then looked up at me, eyes unfocused and drifting.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I was fine…. It’s… Alex… It’s great here.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I took the bottle from him and set it on the table nearby before pulling his phone from his other pocket and sliding it into mine. I crouched down to remove his shoes, knowing he’d rest better if they were off, and lifted his legs onto the ottoman. “Do you want a blanket or anything like that?”
He nodded once, then winced. Tabitha pulled the heavy blackout curtain over the window and handed me a small package of earplugs from the cabinet. I opened them and pressed them into Finn’s palm, steadying his hand as he pushed one into each ear. Tabitha shook out the softest blanket we had and draped it across him before turning on the small oscillating fan in the corner and leaving the room.
I watched him a moment, his face pinched with pain, and my heart lodged itself in my throat. When I’d helped with his episode in LA, I hadn’t been there to witness the decline of his condition, or the way he held out as long as possible. I leaned over him and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and then his cheek before backing out of the room and closing the door softly.
I managed to make it back to my office before my body forced me to take a giant hiccuping breath. My ears began to ring, the familiar warning of my own approaching overload at having to make so many decisions and changes so fast. I slumped onto the couch as Tabitha came in, pushing the door closed and hitting the panel to lower the shades. I barely noticed, my vision narrowing and losing its own focus as I chewed my lip, mind spinning around our Titan discussion this morning and Finn in the next room.
“Drink this,” she held a water bottle out to me, breaking me from my thoughts. “Do you want the fan on?” She pointed to the ceiling fan above us.
I nodded, taking three large gulps of cool water and letting out another deep, stuttering sigh.
Tabitha turned on the fan and then sat down on the sofa near me, not saying anything while I dutifully drank my water. I knew better than to not finish it. She tapped into her phone and initiated low brown noise over the hidden speakers in my office.
“How often does this happen?” she asked quietly when I’d finished the water, and my breathing was no longer interrupted by gasping intakes of air.
“Less than it used to,” I at least knew that. “But too much going on around him can trigger it. Processing so much new information, meeting people, unfamiliar spaces…”
“Nerves,” Tabitha added.
I shrugged at her assessment. “And nerves.”
“I wonder if Sherlock inadvertently triggered it. Maybe screen flicker?”
“Good point,” I felt his phone vibrate in my pocket and pulledit out. Lou. It was locked though, and I couldn’t see what she’d sent. Jealousy flicked through me. I tossed the phone onto the chaise.
Tabitha sat back, crossing one leg over the other and I found myself doing the same thing. Neither one of us spoke for a while, Tabitha knowing that I just needed her to sit with me.
“Has Titan tried to set up another meeting yet?” I asked at length. My mind needed something to do to keep me from dwelling on Finn resting in the next room.
She shook her head. “I don’t think we’ll hear anything until at least tomorrow.”
“We can’t sell to them,” I murmured.
“Jordan seemed really into the idea that we might,” she responded flatly, picking at invisible lint on her pants.
“I don’t think Casey’s a fan.” I readjusted my position, tucking one leg under me and turning toward her more. I rested my elbow on the back of the sofa and my head against my hand. “I don’t have the money, Tabs.”
“I know,” she shrugged before looking at me. “We’ll figure it out. I don’t think Oliver’s too keen to sell to Titan anymore.”
“I think they’ll probably pull projects from us if we play hardball.”
“So?” She lifted a shoulder. “You had plenty of work before Legends happened. And we’re currently having to turn down work because of the couple of small updates we’re working on.”
I considered this, absently tracing the seam of the sofa cushion. Tabitha was right, we’d been profitable before Titan, and we’d be profitable after. But the scale of Legends had changed things. Bigger budgets meant more ambitious projects, the kind of work that let us take creative risks.
