Paige Goodall (shearmadness) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-10-06 21:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [10] october, nathan posey, paige goodall |
Who: Paige Goodall and Nate Posey
Where: temporary government housing & quarantine
What: Nate surprises Paige by calling her first and they talk about his quarantine status.
When: October 3rd, 2019, around 5:30PM
Paige arrived in Austin yesterday with the government supply caravan, spent some of the afternoon talking to Savannah Posey and then had gotten a restless night of sleep. Her former sister-in-law had lived quite a life the past few years and continued to do so, her struggles evident by the number of loved ones she had sitting in quarantine. Nate was one of those people. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Paige wasn’t sure what she was going to find in Austin but to learn that Nate was here but maybe at risk of turning into one of those things. Well. She couldn’t decide if it was better to talk to him just in case the worst case scenario became a reality or if she should wait so she wouldn’t stress him out. Turned out that choice was taken away from her when her phone rang. Nate’s number was already programmed into her phone and so his name flashed across the screen. She just looked at this name as it rang once, twice and three times before she answered. “Hello?” Her voice quavered. “Hey beautiful,” Nathan responded, a hitch in his voice that he tried to cover up, forgetting that it was just Paige now. That he didn’t have any rights to call her pet names anymore, that he hadn’t for longer than they’d ever been married. He had been anxious by the third ring, assuming she wasn’t going to pick up, that maybe the fact that she hadn’t called yet was some kind of a sign. But he hadn’t been able to leave it alone, to just sit on it in quarantine and hope maybe he’d have a chance to see her when he made it out. If he made it out. The medical staff weren’t talking, but his symptoms weren’t getting better. “Heard you’d made your way down to Austin.” He floundered for something to say amongst all the thoughts in his head. Where was even supposed to start? “How you been?” The conversation seemed all wrong, even though he’d only said a dozen words to her so far. How was she? What kind of question was that? She was quiet for several seconds, not even knowing how to reply because this was all so weird and wrong. “Nate… I was going to call you tomorrow. For your birthday,” she said, not answering his question at all. “So much for that surprise.” “I tried t’leave it alone, ‘til I was outta here…” he pulled the phone away from his face so he wouldn't cough directly into it, “but my resolve folded quick. Sorry for ruinin’ your plan.” He laughed a little, apologetically, in disbelief. It was really Paige on the other end of the line. It was. Nathan stretched out on his bed, hoping a different position would keep the coughing at bay until he was finished talking to her. “You catch up with Sav any?” “Pretty sure you know I have,” Paige said with amusement. This all was so surreal. She was having a conversation with Nate. “I know she gave you my number just like she gave me yours.” There was a small pause before she continued: “She told me a bit about what’s going on. Honestly, I saw her name in the paper a couple months ago and thought I was hallucinating. The report gave some details but she gave me some more. God, Nate… I can’t even imagine. It seems like it’s a miracle that you found her after all that time and that you’re all still here.” “It's pretty lucky, yeah,” Nathan agreed. “She tell you I was in Corpus Christi before I made it here?” He doesn't know what his sister might have said or left out. There was a lot to cover. “I spent days in that surf shop near the water.” It's surreal saying it, remembering his first zombie bite, and why he'd been there to begin with. “You know, the one with the fake shark on the wall.” Paige nodded before remembering that Nate couldn’t see her. “Yeah--she said you got bit there. I’d rather think about that time we rented surf boards in the summer and how every time I almost stood up I would freak out and wave my arms around like one of those things outside a car dealership.” Swallowing hard, she added, “But, if you’ve been bitten before you should be okay this time, right?” Nathan laughed at the memory of her surfing attempts, unfortunately that sent him into a short coughing fit. Once he'd gotten it under control he replied, “That's what I'm hopin’, but they ain't sayin’ one way or another.” Maybe he should have held back on the honesty, but it had always been easy to tell her the truth. “God, this is strange,” he admitted, caught up again in the surreality of the conversation. “I wish I weren't in here, that my sister didn't have to give you the cliff notes, and that we weren’t talkin’ on the phone.” Paige let out an uncharacteristic sigh. It really wasn’t her style but there was nothing else she could do right now. Nate was absolutely right. This was weird and she wished they could be talking face-to-face instead of through a phone just as much as he did. But no matter how much they wanted that, it wasn’t going to change the fact that this was how it was. “Why are you coughing? Are you sick? Do they think that you’re… being sick can’t be good.” Scrubbing a hand over his face, Nathan went quiet. The pesky inability to tell anything but the truth to Paige cropping back up like there wasn’t years that they’d missed in each others lives. He’d been trying to keep the concerns about his health to himself; he hadn’t wanted to worry Savannah or Maizie, or anyone else. But he knew he couldn’t laugh it off and tell her it was nothing. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally, breaking the silence. “The docs and nurses ain’t really said a lot about it, and I haven’t asked.” Been to cowardly to ask, actually. He didn’t want to die in a small room without seeing his family and friends again. “I’m not gettin’ any weird cravin’s, so it’s probably nothin’,” he said, trying to joke to lighten the mood and make the conversation feel less like they could be his final words. “Don’t say that!” Paige frowned, continuing, “It’s not funny to joke about when… Just don’t, Nate. This is serious. I--I didn’t think I would even find you here but I would never be able to forgive myself for waiting so long to come here if you died in quarantine when I finally got the courage to try and find out if you were alive.” Her voice was thick with emotion. Even though their marriage had been a failure, being around here if he died in quarantine would still tear her apart. Sighing, he looked up at the ceiling like it would give him some strength to keep from breaking down at the tone in Paige’s voice. “Sorry,” he apologized quietly. “It’s just… it’s a lot to think about, and I haven’t had anythin’ but time.” He’d lost a lot of the upbeat tone he’d been trying to use. “Jackson was in here,” he told her, “and he didn’t make it. Turned a couple days ago.” Had Savannah told her? “I don’t want to go the way he did.” Scrubbing a hand over his face, he knew he was close to a breakdown. “This ain’t how I wanted this phone call t’go.” “Oh, God. Baby--” She said, before stopping herself short and swallowing hard. She hadn’t meant to call him that but it was just such an instinct. She wished she were able to hold his hands or hug him or something because as much as he was her big, strong sailor, she knew this couldn’t be easy for him. She reached up, running her fingers through her hair with anxiety, and continued, “Nate… I’m really sorry about Jackson. And I don’t want you to go that way either.” Ignoring the weird way his chest constricted at the pet name, Nathan sighed. “He just came down to Austin a couple months ago. I thought he’d been dead, since he left California before me.” It hurt to talk about, but it was cathartic also. “Rose called, told me about him. I thought she was joking.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, his voice thick. “Me and him, we lived through cruises, through war zones, and it’s one zombie that takes him out.” He’d been trying to process since Rose had called, but he felt like he’d been stuck. “What kind of luck is that?” And was his any better? Austin seemed to have the only cases of people that were bit more than once, so the doctors couldn’t even quell any fears by telling him he’d be fine leave in a few days. “The rotten kind,” Paige said quietly, seeing no point in trying to paint this as something different than what it was. “I’m so sorry Nate. And I wish I could be there with you instead of talking to you through this stupid telephone. I know I can’t do anything to make it better but I feel terrible about you being alone right now and having to deal with this all by yourself.” He smiled to himself, comforted by Paige even though it was just a small thing. “I reckon if I weren’t in here it wouldn’t be so bad,” he admitted. “Or it’d be worse. Never was one for good reactions to bad news.” He skirts away from the subject pretty quick though, doesn’t want to pull history into it. But Paige knows him, better than a lot of people, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he would have gone out drinking in Jackson’s honor if he could. “Wish I could see you too,” he said quietly, exhausted. “Maybe next time.” He knew he wasn’t a sight, with an unkempt beard and bags under his eyes, but he felt like he only had a small grasp on what was going on outside. Phone calls and text messages only did so much. “Next time?” She asked with confusion. “There better not be a next time of you sitting in a quarantine room, Nathaniel Edward Posey,” she said, voice stern. Even if he managed to live through two zombie bites, who knew what immunity really meant. What if the third time was a charm? As far as Paige was concerned, he better never get bit again for the rest of his life. Nathan laughed even though it would probably set Paige off more. That’s not what he’d meant at all, but it felt a little gratifying to know that Paige cared enough to scold him for it. “No, no, no. I meant next time you call durin’ this one, darlin’,” he corrected. “I’m in here another five days at least. Ain’t much to do beyond talkin’ and readin’.” As well as Nate had once known her, the pout would be audible to him over the phone as she admitted a slight defeat in her overreaction. “Oh. Well. I still mean it, though.” Nevermind the assumption he made that she would call again, because they both knew she would. Things had been rough for them after the divorce but even then they eventually made their way back to each other in an attempted friendship. Her pull towards him was like gravity. Clearing her throat and trying to speak more normally, she said, “I’m sorry you’re so bored. This isolation can’t be easy for you. Especially when you always did better with a… posse.” Nathan laughed again, which sent him into a brief coughing fit. There wasn’t much point denying Paige’s words; he was half-crazy with five days left. “Helps I’ve got a phone still,” he admitted once he’d recovered his voice again. “Reckon I’ll feel more than a little crazy when they let me out.” He was reminded of the weeks that he’d spent by himself getting to Houston, then Corpus Christi, and finally Austin. They’d been isolating to say the least, and he’d been so relieved to find his family at the end of it. “I asked if they’d let me out on day eight, but they’re real sticklers for the ten day rule.” Were they going to creep slower now that he knew Paige was in the city? “You plannin’ on stickin’ around that long?” It could be she had a life to get back to, hanging around Austin just to see him wouldn’t make a lot of sense if that was the case. Even if he wanted her to. It seemed like a shame to come all this way to Austin and not wait around for Nate to be out of quarantine. And she had let all her customers know that she was on “vacation” for a while… “Yeah. If you want to see me I can stick around for a little while. I brought some work with me, so…” she trailed off, clearing her throat before adding, “It’ll probably feel a little less weird to be here once I see you.” “I’d like that,” Nathan replied. “Sorry you’ve gotta wait around.” If she’d only shown up a few days later, then it wouldn’t be almost a week, but he reminded himself that she hadn’t really come to Austin to see him. His name hadn’t been in the papers like Savannah’s had. “I should let you go, though. Get settled, or whatever.” He could’ve kept her on the phone a lot longer, but he’d already ruined her surprise with his impatience, he didn’t think he should push his luck. “Oh,” Paige said, her mixture of confusion and disappointment not difficult to discern from her voice. It seemed like a rather abrupt ending to their conversation but Paige wasn’t about to keep Nate on the line any longer than he wanted to be. “Okay then. Well, I’ll talk to you soon and see you in a few days then. Take care, Nate.” |