He wasn't ashamed of much he'd done in his life. He'd made choices, not always the right ones, but often the ones he'd had to make to survive - himself and those he cared about, right or wrong. Even when times had been hardest, Nathan had tried to keep to some moral code, knowing he had to be able to look at himself in the mirror each morning and like the man he saw there. This was different. Like the actions of another man, one who hadn't lived through what he had, survived what he'd come through. The door to the clinic was locked, he'd checked it three times now, pulling at the handle to make sure he wouldn't be disturbed. It was uncomfortably like a ritual, dark parody of things he'd left behind long ago, taking him back to a place he'd never visited since - Josiah's church was different, ramshackle enough not to remind him of the pristine whiteness the plantation church had somehow managed to maintain, even as the shacks around it fell into disrepair. On his knees, Nathan slipped his hand between cot and threadbare mattress, fingers latching onto what he sought. Still there. Somehow he kept expecting it to vanish, reclaimed by its rightful owner or just gone, with no sense of where. He couldn't give it back, not now, not when the evidence of what he'd done was so clearly written on every scrap of it - how could he explain, even if someone wanted to hear, when he didn't really know himself why he'd done what he'd done? Maybe it was the colour, the luminous deep red that had attracted him, darker than blood. He couldn't forget the colour, the depth of it, the warmth that attracted his gaze just as the texture seemed to beckon his fingers to touch, to grasp, to claim. It had been softer than he'd expected, soft against the callouses of his hands, rough skin catching on the delicate material. So different from what he'd known as a child, the coarsest of cotton, burlap sacks, everything this was not. Sitting back on his heels, the object of his scrutiny held up to the flickering light of the oil lamps, Nathan wondered if it had been missed. Had the wardrobe been ransacked in search of it, the laundress quizzed, or had it merely been considered lost somewhere along the way? He couldn't be sure, could never be sure, and somehow that added to the allure. There was an element of danger in all of this, a secret side to his ritual, the early Church hiding from its persecutors even as it clung together. Held to his face, it was softer still. An elusive scent still clung, whisky and cigarillos, the faintest touch of something else, something warmer and more enticing - he could smell himself on it too, a sharper aroma. Nathan breathed it all in, three deep breaths each one held till his head began to spin. Enough. This time, it was enough to calm him, taking him away from the stink of the hot summer day just ended, away from kneeling on rough-hewn planks in a tumbledown clinic, hands gripping a stolen waistcoat till the knuckles whitened beneath his skin. Enough. This time.

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