(Untitled)

[once_invisible]

The black coat wasn't one he'd expected to find in the clothes box. Rodney recognized it instantly, the leather familiar to his touch, like coming home to something he'd missed for a long time. Since coming here, there hadn't really been anything to completely jar him out of a harmless sort of complacency, but if there was going to be anything,

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[lastof_five]

"Nice duster, Rodney," Helen quipped as she walked into the laundry room, her chipper expression fading a little when she caught a glimpse of Rodney's face. He was normally a jolly fellow, so very much like her own Nigel that it hurt to look at him sometimes, and Nigel had also been prone to a rare, but evident, melancholy side. Perhaps Rodney was as well.

"Is something the matter? Or am I reading into things?"

She would never be as good at reading people as Will. No way and no how.

[once_invisible]

He glanced up as soon as he was addressed, a small flicker of a smile the most he could muster for the moment. Something guilty factored into his expression as well, partially because this wasn't the sort of thing that he felt he needed to burden anyone else with. A silly thought, he knew, but one he couldn't help harboring.

"You're not reading into things," he admitted, with a slight toss of his head. "These were the staples of my wardrobe back home. Coat and facepaint. Made me visible."

[lastof_five]

Helen settled next to him, laundry forgotten for a moment in lieu of Rodney's comfort. Nigel had been able to control his gift, use it voluntarily. It didn't appear that Rodney had the same luxury.

"You never learned how to turn it on and off, did you?"

[once_invisible]

Rodney shook his head, still staring down at his hands.

"It was just something you had or you didn't," he said, starting to screw the cap back onto the tin of paint. "You know, I don't even know if they had a cure for me. I could have been working for something that didn't exist."

[lastof_five]

"If you had been with me," Helen said quietly, reaching a hand out to touch Rodney's shoulder. "I would have found one. It's what I do, after all. Achieve the unattainable. Believe the impossible."

[once_invisible]

A beat passed, and Rodney's smile went crooked as he leaned slightly into her touch. "We can't all be so lucky. Or so clever."

Still, he appreciated the sentiment. Even before becoming invisible, there had been precious few people who'd even given at whit about him. Despite being generally likable, he'd never quite made any lasting connections with anybody at all.

[lastof_five]

"You're very clever, Rodney. Don't doubt that," Helen said, leaning over and dropping a kiss in his hair. "I do wish you could have met my Nigel. You're so alike. Right down to being ginger thieves."

Nigel had been clever in chemistry, it was true, but apparently it was a hallmark of invisible men to rip off a bank or two.