"Some of those people were there for you too though, weren't they? Even if it started with Nik, at least a few of them saw you eventually. Who says those people wouldn't still be there for you? Belladonna clearly is. What about Cy? He can't have only been there for Nik if they're that close. You've also got me and Reed and probably the rest of our little corner of the family if you needed any of them."
Maybe they hadn't been there through the thick of it but it was clear the lot of them weren't going anywhere any time soon.
"I'm hearing a lot of 'probably' in the things you're saying. Lots of assuming. Shit is gonna be complicated, Finn. If he feels that way or not - but his relationship with Ava and his relationship with you are not mutually exclusive. It might be hard but what isn't?" Izzy let out a heavy sigh. He got it, he totally got it. "Is it one of those things where maybe it scares you that he might not be able to see the harm she's done? Or am I totally off base?"
Finn was quiet for a little bit, seeing no point in trying to argue when he'd already run out of moves on that front without starting to repeat himself.
"I dunno," he shrugged, clearly feeling the weight of the whole thing behind the lessening of his willingness to speak.
"I think he does realise it. It's more about how he's gonna deal with it, if that makes sense?"
What Finn was getting at was that he understood that being the one to take over whenever things got too hard for Nik to handle meant that Nik never got the chance to learn how to cope by himself under that kind of stress, and Finn couldn't let go of being his protector under those circumstances, even though they were now separate.




















