25: Piano Lesson

Nate couldn't stand it. How could she know that? I don't have any pictures. How could she know what my house looked like?

In his mind's eye he could see it with its large porches and Corinthian columns, the shutters they rarely had to use and were mostly for show. They almost never used the open porch on the second level since it wasn't shaded. He'd spent many hours on that first floor back porch when the days would get so hot that being inside the house became unbearable. There was just something special about a back porch. The house had a rather large front porch as well, but on the front porch, you had to be willing to be welcoming and friendly to anyone who'd happen to pass by. On the back porch, you could just be yourself: friendly, but less formal.

He'd stolen his first kiss from Helen on that back porch. He'd said goodbye to her for the last time there as well.

But how did it come to be in Gabby's mind's eye as well? If only I could figure out a way to get it out of her.

Gabriella tried very hard not to think about the annoying dreams she had when she chased after Nate's retreating form in an annoying, cumbersome skirt. She hated the desperately sad feeling she had whenever she had those dreams. She attributed the feelings to the fact that the first dream like that she'd had was that night when she'd tried to break up with him. The second one was on that same night, but it wasn't as sad. It'd only been a few days since that first dream, but she'd had the dream almost every time she'd fallen asleep since then.

"Dreams?" Nate asked her when he pulled away from her for a moment.

"Get out of my head, Nate." she warned.

Nate persisted, ignoring her warning, "But what kind of dreams?"

"Just stupid dreams! I don't like them; I don't want to talk about them!" she said and worked very hard to not think about them.

"But I have to know, Gabriella! At first you say you don't know how that picture got in your head, then you remember that it was in a dream... and I'm in that dream. Don't you find it odd that you're dreaming of me as a human at my old house? How could you know that?"

"Stop it, Nate! You're scaring me again!" she growled as she refused to think anything more about it. She struggled against his hold, and the more she struggled, the tighter it became. "Let me go!"

"Not a chance." he replied vehemently, and to prove his point, he pinned her arms at her sides by wrapping his arms tightly around her. "Tell me about these dreams."

"No." she growled again and struggled in vain against him. She worked hard at keeping any thought of the dreams out of her head, and she vowed to think as little as possible about them in the future.

"Why not? Why are you so adamantly not thinking about them?" Holding her in only one arm now, he reached up to try and brush her bangs out of her eyes.

"I don't like them. I don't like how I feel when I have them. I'd rather just forget them all together, now let me go!"

"What do you feel when you have them that you don't like?" he asked, still probing.

I'm about to try that new thing I can do on you, Nate, if you don't let me go soon.

"No, you won't." he argued with her thought. "You're not feeling that threatened."

"Why do you have to know these things? Why can't you just chalk it up to stupid dreams and leave it at that?  I'm psychic. Maybe that has something to do with it."

Nate shook his head no. "This isn't because you're psychic, Gabriella. These are memories. I can tell the difference."

"I don't know, alright! They're just dreams!"

Nate felt aggravated that he still couldn't get past this strange block in Gabby's mind. He mentally imagined it to look like a barred up door with a 'do not enter' banner taped across it. I've pushed as hard as I can push for now. I will figure this out eventually, however.


"Alright." he relented. "They're just dreams. I wish you would tell me about them, though. I hope you can understand why I'm insanely curious. If they're so sad, maybe I can help..." he left the statement hanging and let her go. She darted out of his room.

My dreams are sad too, he thought.

Gabriella took a shower and went downstairs to visit with her mother. She found her sitting at the dining room table, reading. Gabby noticed she'd started looking paler. Also, strangely, she looked more and more like she was her sister instead of her mother. She guessed it was just because her mother now looked to be her age.

"What are you reading, Mom?" she asked as she walked up.

" 'The Noble History of Socks'." she answered. "I picked it up on a lark, but now I can't put it down. It's a marvelous distraction. You should read it when I'm done."

"You're going to have to leave, aren't you?" Gabriella asked quietly.

Nate winced at the pain in her voice as he made his way to the fridge.

"Yes. But you know you'll see me again." Marge answered, her eyes staying on the book because she couldn't bear to see the expression on her daughter's face.

Gabriella and her mother had never been very close, but she worried how she felt like now she was aiding the enemy. She didn't want to think of her mother as the enemy, but she knew the likelihood was strong that Gus would use her mother as a tool against her and Nate if he could figure out how and should the need arise. She also hated how, for the first time in her life, she liked that she was more powerful than her mother.

"Mom, I need you to show me how to use that stuff that you had me go get." she asked quietly.

"The big red spellbook that was on the podium teaches you everything. Well, almost everything. I can work with you tomorrow on that stuff. You really need to get some more sleep first, though." Marge now looked up at her daughter to say, "First lesson: don't ever try anything new if, when you begin, you're tired."

"But I'm not tired!" Gabby argued in a childlike manner.

Marge glanced back up at her with a look of disbelief. "Yes, you are."

Gabriella got distracted from arguing back with her mother by hearing a bar stool scoot noisily across the floor. She glanced over and her heart did a little flip flop as she saw Nate sitting over in the kitchen without his shirt on. She was also curious to see him drink that plasma fruit juice stuff. Then she got irritated from her curiosity.

Nate's eyes cut over to Gabriella in a fashion as if to say, 'what are you looking at?'. He felt a little mad at her since she wouldn't tell him about her dreams. Her mentioning her dream made him remember that he'd had an interesting one himself, but he still couldn't remember what it was that made him wake up with a start the other morning in Gabriella's old house.

Of course, he thought, if she'd just share with me hers, I'd tell her about mine. Maybe they're similar. ... Wow. The possible reasons why they could be similar boggle the mind. What if reincarnation is real? Maybe there's something to the idea of inherited memory... that she got it from being one of Helen's descendants. I suppose it's possible she is. Oh, that's too weird. I don't suppose that's any more weird than her being Helen reincarnated. Hah! Don't go there, Nate. Wishful thinking will end up biting you in the ass later.

He ignored the annoying conversation Gabriella had with her mother as he sat and thought some more.

Still, it's really strange how I love her every bit as much as I loved Helen. Maybe my subconscious is just wishing to make sense of that in these dreams. In fact, it's getting less and less painful to think about her. I guess that's good because she keeps cropping up in my mind. If I had time or opportunity, I'd go and visit her grave again. I wonder if they've let the graveyard overgrow again. Maybe that 'mysterious benefactor', namely me, needs to go and clean it all up in one night like before. It's a real shame how people these days don't take care of old family cemeteries anymore.


He threw away his juice box and walked over to the piano to blow off some steam.

"I didn't know you played." Gabriella said quietly as she walked over in her annoyingly-short nightshirt.

Nate wished she'd just hop along to bed already and stop parading herself and her legs around in front of him. He was trying to be mad at her for not wanting to talk about that memory in her head.

She made things worse when she leaned down on the piano, asking what he was playing. She rocked a little forward to see the music stand, and as she did, the nightshirt she wore parted just a little more than he cared for at the moment. He did not need this form of subliminal torture.

"It's Chopin's Nocturne in C Sharp Minor. Sometimes I think the man dedicated his life to writing difficult piano pieces. Therefore, I simply have to study and master each and every one of them." he explained, forcing his eyes back on the music and keys in front of him.

He didn't miss Gabby's cynical smile, however. "Of course." she agreed as his pinky finger hit the first note of a descending run just a little too hard. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Marge glance up at him curiously as she turned a page in her book.

"Guess I'm a little out of practice." he said in an effort to explain the harsh phrasing he was doing. "I've had a lot going on around me lately."

Gabriella shrugged. I wouldn't know the difference anyway if you were playing it totally wrong. Aloud, she said, "I wish I could play like that. I just never had much opportunity to learn." She just stayed there, leaning provocatively (at least to Nate) down on the piano, watching him.

What is she on about? he thought angrily as she leaned forward a little further to see the music, causing her shirt to part even more. I don't need this! Damn it, Gabriella! Go to bed before I take you there myself.


"I'm going to go see if I can get some sleep." Marge said suddenly as she slammed the book shut. She took the book with her instead of putting it back on the shelf as she made her way to her temporary bedroom.

"I mean, I can read music. I used to play the flute in school, although I wasn't very good." Gabriella rambled. "But that's a whole lotta notes there."

"Want me to teach you a little?" he found himself asking before he could stop himself. He knew that was what she was after. She smiled brightly down at him and nodded her head, and his mood felt a little lighter because of it.

He stood up and gestured to the piano bench in front of him. She sat down on it, and he leaned over her and he quickly found out she at least knew what note each key was. He turned to a more reasonably easy piece of music in the book and helped her bumble her way through it.

"Why are you only playing with your right hand?" he finally asked the question that had been bugging him.

"Because I only know how to read treble clef." she said sheepishly and kept playing.

He snorted and quickly sat down behind her on the piano bench. He pulled her left hand up and put it on the keys, trying desperately not to bury his face in her hair as he gave her a crash course in the bass clef. Her left hand clumsily fumbled along as she tried to get it to move with the same dexterity as her right. He found himself playing the song along with her, and he failed in his attempt at not breathing in her delicious scent when he buried his face in her hair.

His right arm wrapped itself around her waist as he whispered in her ear, "I love you, Gabriella." She stopped playing and her back went ramrod straight against his chest. He knew she debated getting up, so he held on to her tighter as he let his mouth range along the nape of her neck. His left hand, now on her thigh, felt the goosebumps as they rose along her skin.

Her breathing sounded shaky as she said, "Nate, don't." He could hear her heart racing. Why does she always push me away? She loves me, but at the same time she doesn't like the unfamiliar feelings I bring about in her. I'm going to have to push a little harder than normal.

He adjusted their positions on the piano bench quickly to give her no time to try and stop him. Her look of shock didn't surprise him, neither did the look of fear. She said his name as he pulled her against him. She meekly pressed against his shoulders in a belated attempt to escape this close proximity.

With one hand, he kept her close to him while the other he allowed to roam free from her upper thigh down to her knee and back. She started breathing faster as she could feel his arousal stiffen against her. When he leaned forward to kiss her, she leaned back and asked him to stop it.

"Why?" he asked simply, looking up at her. He relished the look of confusion on her face, and he meant every word as he said, "I have never in my entire life wanted to not 'stop it' more than now." He reached up and held the back of her head as he brought her face to his and crushed his lips to hers.

He rocked her body against him, and he was amazed at how he could feel coming from her just how badly she wanted this too. It felt glorious feeling her desire mingle with his inside of him, and he began to anticipate how good it would feel to experience their mutual fulfillment.

A horse, Nate guessed Desi, whinnied loudly outside and startled Gabriella as she gained enough leverage to push herself away from his kiss. She started to try and wiggle herself backwards off of him.

"Please, Nate. Don't. I just ... can't." she sorrowfully explained.

"Why not? What are you afraid of?" he asked.

Me, he thought. She's afraid of me. And herself. But mostly me. Still going back to what I am. Still going back to the fucking vision of the two of us. I brought all that back from my behavior this evening. The pain of her rejection hurt him to the very center of his being.

Why did I give her the opportunity to do this to me again? Twice in one night. You'd think I'd learn my lesson.


She didn't have to say a word. She didn't have to even think any response to him. He knew, and she knew he knew. Tonight wasn't the night. He turned them around and let her go.

She got up and walked towards the stairs. He leaned back against the keys, berating himself, and wondering if he'd ever convince her to stop being afraid of the two of them being together. Even when he thought he had, he still sensed a feeling of slight detachment coming from her.

She walked back towards him a few steps and folded her arms as she spoke to him. "I'm sorry, Nate. I'm sorry I do this to you. I'm sorry ... I'll just move out and make it easier for you."

He cleared his throat and was amazed at the steadiness in his voice as he said, "If you move out I will bring you back. I registered August's amazement before he lost consciousness. You're not safe."

"He has my mother soon. I'll be fine." she said definitively and marched up the stairs.

Nate leaned forward and put his head in his hands. He knew there was no point in trying to convince her she was wrong right now. He'd just take it one day at a time, and tonight, she was here, torturing him, but safe.

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The link above is Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor played by Maria Joao Pires. Most of the pictures were taken by the person that uploaded it, but he/she admits to 'borrowing' a few others.