paparazzi :: nils

Now that quite some time had passed since the organization that had terrorized Nils' life for several years had been taken down, Paisley and her boyfriend had been able to go out and do normal clio things. Nils was steadily becoming more and more open to allowing himself to let loose and enjoy life when he was with Paisley, and gradually she'd been introducing him to all the awesome things he had been missing.

They'd had a great date tonight--first they'd gone to a "wine and paint" night, where they'd painted pictures of a sunset, and they'd finished their evening at a fancy little restaurant. It had been the perfect day, made all the more perfect by Nils' company.

As they exited the restaurant, Paisley slipped her arm through Nils'. "Thanks for coming out with me tonight," she said, snuggling up next to him as they started the walk back to the estate.

"Haha, of course," Nils replied. As if he wouldn't want to go out with Paisley. She took him to do all sorts of amazing things, things he never thought he'd do in his life. Things that, just a year ago, would have seemed like fantasy. Of course, Paisley could make anything amazing just by being there.

They walked together contently, arm in arm, when Nils caught someone out of the corner of his eye. He shot a quick glance over and saw a couple clio he was pretty sure he'd seen when they first left the restaurant. Biting his lip nervously, he forced himself not to look at them as he and Paisley continued on. But even after they'd turned a couple corners, he still caught a glimpse of the very same clio trailing several feet behind them.

"Paisley," he said in a low voice, visibly tense at this point. "I think someone's following us."

He and Henri had spent four years looking out for clio following them. He knew the signs. He couldn't react, though. He couldn't let them know that he knew.

"Following us?" Paisley repeated in question, turning to look behind them. Sure enough, there were two clio walking about 20 feet behind them. She was in the process of turning back around to reassure Nils that they were probably just walking in the same direction when she saw the girl pull up a camera and snap a pic. "It's her!" she heard from the couple.

Paisley stopped walking suddenly, confused. Did they just take a picture of her? "Do you know those guys?" she asked Nils. Judging by the look on his face, no, he did not. How peculiar.

"No, don't look--" Nils whispered, but Paisley had already turned around. His heart started beating faster. Now the clio following them would know that they'd been spotted and-and--

"It's her!"

Wait. Her? They were coming after Paisley, not him? What did they want? Nils didn't like it, he just wanted to get out of here, get away from them, but Paisley had stopped and he wasn't going to leave her. Wasn't she worried? Why was she so calm?

Paisley wrote:"Do you know those guys?"

"No...no, I..." Nils glanced back, and then immediately faced away again. Was that a camera he saw? He took Paisley's wrist and tugged a little. "Let's get away from them, please, Paisley. I don't like this." He wasn't even sure what this was.

Paisley was going to leave since a)Nils was freaking out and b)it was a little weird, when one of the clio called out to her.

"Overloridian Sommers! Wait!"

Paisley felt Nils squeeze her wrist a little tighter. "It's going to be okay," she said softly. This didn't happen to her often, but usually after political decisions had been made she would have a few reporters following her around asking for an interview. The only thing out of the ordinary here was that there hadn't been any big news lately.

She didn't stop. Especially not after she heard, "Who's the mystery guy? Is this a new relationship?"

She heard a few more shutter clicks as she and Nils turned the corner. They were even taking pictures of their backs!

Thankfully Paisley started walking, just as the strange clio started asking her questions about him. He really wanted nothing more than to take off right now. Instead, as soon as they turned a corner, he abruptly pulled Paisley into a little alleyway between two buildings. In Nadar, there were no brick roads or paved sidewalks. Everything was just dirt and grass. He used his eilemaiden to create a wall of earth, blocking them off from the road.

Now that they were safely hidden, he tried to calm down a little. It didn't really work. "Who were they?" he asked Paisley, clearly distressed. "Why were they taking pictures of us?" Why were they asking about me?

Paisley didn't realize how truly freaked out Nils was until he pulled her into a little corner and concealed them. Of course he would be nervous--whenever he'd gotten unnecessary attention before it would mean someone was coming for him. Paisley's heart squeezed a little.

"I think they're just reporters," she said, cringing a little at the thought. She didn't mind them, herself, but she knew that would make Nils worry. "They just want to know about me, that's all," Paisley said. And of course now that Nils was in the picture they'd want to know about him too. "It's okay, they don't mean anything."

Reporters. Nils closed his eyes and let out a weary breath. No one was after him. It was just reporters who wanted to know about Paisley, their overloridian. He'd probably feel stupid later, once he'd calmed down. Despite the fact that those clio being reporters was much better than clio coming after him, he was still far from relieved. They were asking about me...

"You don't think...they're not going to publish pictures of me, are they?" he asked. He wasn't sure he could stand the thought of pictures of him in newspapers circulating around Amelia to clio who didn't even know him...or worse, clio who did know him.

Paisley swallowed. She didn't know. Photographs in newspapers were a relatively new thing, and she supposed it would make sense for them to publish a picture with their articles about her, now.

"They only got pictures of our backs," Paisley reassured him. "They wouldn't publish that. And they didn't interview us, so they have no story to run them with, anyway."

"But this'll happen again, won't it?" Nils said, pacing back and forth a little bit. Of course he knew Paisley, as the overloridian, was a huge public figure, but up until now he hadn't thought much about what that made him, as her boyfriend. Was he going to be forced into the public too? Would the reporters start digging up his past and publish it for the world to see? "What if they find out about...about the stuff that I..."

He trailed off. Paisley would know what he was talking about, some of the things he'd been forced to do. And it wasn't like it would be hard for reporters to figure out he was one of the kidnapping victims. Paisley's involvement in breaking up the ring had been a huge deal when it happened. Now that he thought about it, this would be bad for Paisley too, for Nadar to find out exactly what kind of clio she was with.

You're getting ahead of yourself...you don't know that any of this will happen, Tanith tried to reason. Nils always jumped to the worst conclusions.

"I don't know," Paisley said honestly, though she would put money on it definitely happening again. Cameras were going to change their world more than they had initially thought, it seemed.

"Let's get back to the estate," she said, rubbing Nils' arm. "They've got to be gone by now, and it's getting late." She wanted to change the subject, to get him thinking about something else. "Mom and Dad invited us for dinner tomorrow night. They boys have been asking for you." Both of Paisley's brothers had developed an almost instant liking for Nils.

"Okay," Nils muttered, breaking down his earth-wall and returning it to its original state. He was a little nervous to peak out from their hiding place, but sure enough the reporters were gone. Paisley's mentioning of her family lifted his spirits a little bit, but they were dampened again when his mind wandered off and began wondering what would happen if his past did get released to the public and they read about it.

"Paisley, do you think your family would still like me if they really knew about me?" he asked. They had never told her family about his past in detail, only that his parents had died and he didn't like to talk about it. They'd always kept everything vague, answering questions with half-truths.

"Is that what you're worried about?" Paisley asked, caught off guard. She stopped him, and took his hands. "My family loves you, Nils," she said honestly. "I promise you that nothing could change their opinion about you."

The only reason Paisley hadn't told her family the truth about Nils was because he had asked her not to. It had nothing to do with her fearing they wouldn't like or trust him anymore.

"Yeah...okay," Nils said doubtfully. It wasn't that he thought Paisley would lie to him or anything, it was just that years of mistreatment and hating himself made him have a hard time trusting when clio actually liked him. He loved Paisley's family, too, and was terrified that they might reject him one day.

He squeezed Paisley's hands. At least he knew he could trust her completely. "Sorry. For freaking out. I think I'm okay now."

Paisley leaned up and kissed him. "We'll be okay," she told him. And they would. No matter what life threw at them, she knew that they could handle it. Together.

"Let's go home."