can't you see [petra]

Henri was drunk.

He was also confused, heartbroken, and heading toward the place he knew Petra was staying in. While he had elected not to take his flask (or had simply forgotten it, he wasn't sure), the smell on him made it clear that he had been drinking a fair amount tonight.

He'd told Estela that he needed some time to think about everything, and had left her at the hospital to watch over Elias and the rest of their family. The decision to leave made him feel guilty as well, but he just couldn't stand being there anymore. He couldn't look his son in the eye and know that he had done nothing to help or find him when he was taken.

And he was taken while on his way to Nadar, because Henri had asked him to come there.

In addition to everything that had happened to his son and his brother's kids, somehow this all connected back to Petra too. Someone that he'd known practically his entire life. Someone that he maybe loved. And someone that he knew he had to let go of, for his wife.

But gods did he not want to. Which was how he somehow found himself knocking on the door to her hotel room, unsure of what he was going to say or do but knowing he had to do or say something.

Petra was sleeping.

Or at least, she was until there was a knock at the door in the middle of the night. Who in the fuck..? Groggy and annoyed, she got up and went to go look through the door's peep hole. She took a breath when she saw Henri of all clio on the other side of the door. What the hell was he doing here in the middle of the goddamn night?

What do you think? Tasia asked dryly.

Well. Maybe if it were two weeks ago, Petra would think Henri was here for a booty call or something. But he had his wife back now. Why would he want to see her when he had the woman he actually loved back? But if he was here for something else, why the middle of the night?

She opened the door. "What are you doing here?" she asked bluntly, in no mood to play coy.

In Henri's drunken stupor, wandering to Petra's had seemed like a good idea. He assumed she'd want to see him, or that he'd have the courage to say everything that was on his mind about their time together and how he felt about her (and without any consequences!). But now that he was here, looking her right in the face, this idea didn't seem so good anymore.

The way she was looking at him made him want to run away and hide. But that was immature, and he had been the one to bother her in the first place.

After staring at her dumbly for a moment, he looked down at his feet and shook his head.

"I...don't know," he admitted. As stupid as it was, he was being honest. "I um...just wanted to see you, I guess."

He looked back up to her, his mouth open as if he wanted to say more. After another brief pause, he said, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't've come here." He probably seemed pretty pathetic, which was how he was starting to view himself at this moment -- what a change, having just had such grandeur thoughts on the way to the hotel of this big moment between them and instead mumbling weak apologies about nothing.

Two things became immediately clear when Henri spoke. One, he was drunk. Well, that fucking figured. Of course he wouldn't "just want to see her" if he was in his right mind. Two, he was a mess. While her first instinct was to tell him to go home and shut the door in his face, she found that she couldn't send him off like this.

"Just--here, come in." She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, closing the door behind him. She didn't get it. Why wouldn't he be home with his wife? What had happened there? "What the fuck is going on, Henri? Talk to me."

Henri almost couldn't believe that Petra had actually dragged him into her hotel room. He figured she'd tell him to go away or fuck off.

But, here he was, standing in her hotel room as she attempted to get him to open up. He opened his mouth to talk normally, just tell her about all of the things he'd been thinking about, but his voice was cracked and high-pitched when he spoke. He was on the verge of tears.

"I'm so confused, Petra," he said, scrunching his face together to try and stop himself from breaking out into a sob. His body seemed to collapse as he sat on the bed in the room, his elbows resting on his knees as his face fell into his hands.

"I thought I was making progress, moving forward. I was accepting that she was gone, I was letting myself love somebody again." He sniffled, a few tears streaming from his eyes. "I spent so long being alone, hating myself for letting her disappear...and I finally start to heal and enjoy things again, and she just reappears? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to think?"

He wiped the tears from his face as he stared at the ugly carpet of the hotel room. "Am I just supposed to pretend everything is okay?"

Petra led Henri over to the bed, where he dissolved into a blubbering mess. Gods, was there anything more unattractive than a grown man crying? She was about to tell him to get a grip, maybe shake him or something, when he caught her off guard.

Henri wrote:"I was letting myself love somebody again."

She didn't think she could remember the last time a non-family member had said they loved her. She stared at him as he blabbed on, oblivious to her reaction. She blinked and shook her head, getting a hold of herself before trying to process what else he was saying.

Henri wrote:"Am I just supposed to pretend everything is okay?"

"There's no one thing you're supposed to do," she said slowly. She still didn't really understand the whole wife situation. She had been missing, and now she was back. Where the hell had she been? "You can think and do whatever you want about it."

Henri sniffled again, wiping his face on the sleeve of his jacket (really attractively, of course) before looking over at Petra.

"I was ready to be with you," he said honestly, if not with a bit of a slur from the alcohol. "I still want that, but..."

He looked back down again as the full weight of his situation seemed to crush him emotionally. "I love Estela. I loved being married to her, and raising a child with her, and building a life with her. I don't know how to go back to that life after mourning her for so long, or after finding out that so much of what I knew about her and her life was a lie."

After a pause, he shook his head in heartbroken confusion. "She was like us, you know. Raised by criminals, forced to do horrible things. I don't know why she couldn't just tell me, but..." He started to choke up again, maybe this time because of his own experiences as a child. "...I almost can't blame her for wanting to pretend none of that ever happened." A few tears streamed down his cheeks again as some of his memories forced their way into his mind.

Petra closed her eyes, taking a moment to collect herself before responding to anything Henri was saying. No matter what he said about wanting to be with her, or how conflicted he seemed about his wife, or even if he claimed to love her, there was one thing she was absolutely sure of. He would always choose someone else.

It was actually starting to make her angry. Here he was, crying to her about the wife he would inevitably return to. Looking to her for comfort without even realizing what she was going through.

"Too bad not all of us have the luxury of pretending it never happened," she said coldly. And then, just to see how Henri would react, she added: "Sounds to me like she was a liar and a coward."

Henri's face dropped into his palms as he felt Petra's words hit his core. "Maybe you're right," he said, somewhat muffled by his hands. Many similar thoughts had crossed his mind, but he hadn't allowed them to truly manifest. Maybe he should. Maybe Estela -- his wife, the mother of his child -- had chosen cowardice over integrity and authenticity.

So much of him wanted to forgive her. He did understand the desire to start over, to let go of everything that happened in the past -- but he couldn't look past the damage that all of this pretending had caused. Elias was traumatized and physically changed forever, and Henri's brother's kids had even gotten caught up in it all. They were all lucky to be alive.

He took a deep breath and wiped his face off, taking a look over at Petra again. Even though nothing had been resolved and he was still unsure of how exactly to move forward, he did feel a bit of relief. He hadn't gotten a chance to talk to many clio about it -- he still wasn't sure exactly what to tell Nils or his other family members just yet, and he definitely didn't want Nils to see him like this.

"I'm sorry Axel got caught up in all of this," he said, looking down but still facing Petra. "He seems like a really good kid."

Henri wrote:"Maybe you're right."

Petra raised her eyebrows. "I...wasn't expecting you to agree," she said plainly. She had expected anger, denial, defensiveness. His pathetic, resigned reaction caught her off guard enough that her own anger seemed to deflate a little. A little.

Henri wrote:"I'm sorry Axel got caught up in all of this. He seems like a really good kid."

Petra laughed bitterly and shook her head at Henri's meaningless words. Caught up in all of this, like it was some kind of crazy coincidence or plain bad luck. Like it hadn't been personal. Cillian attacking Axel had nothing to do with Henri's lying wife. "Yeah, he's pretty good considering he was born to two fucked up clio who had no business having children."

Henri chuckled lightly. He'd spent the last eighteen years believing that he was some evil clio that found a miracle in Estela, that he wasn't worthy of having a family or children but that Estela was. Turns out Estela's past was just as bad as his -- but still somehow a great kid came out of it.

"I don't know how we did it," he said lightheartedly. "After all you and I have been through, and Nils...I don't know how we had such great kids." He paused briefly, a small smile crawling onto his face. "But it makes me happy that something so good could come out of something so bad. Makes me think I might not be all bad."

He looked to Petra with admiration. "And you're not as bad as you think you are."

Petra looked away from Henri's stupid, smiling face and gave him a light shove. "You're such a fucking sap," she told him. "You always have been."

She breathed out through her nose and leaned back. Nice as they were, kind words and stupid smiles didn't change the situation they were in. Though her anger had cooled off a little, she was still annoyed that he had come here drunk and whining about his wife. She was annoyed that he was here in the middle of the night when he had a fucking wife.

"Won't your wife be wondering where you are?" she asked pointedly. He may have admitted Estela was a coward, but Petra was still far from convinced that he'd leave her.