xp_logs | Nathan, Moira, Haroun, and Alison, Saturday afternoon/evening

Directly after returning from New York, Nathan goes up to find Moira and tell her how it went. They look at some of the contents of Saul's envelope together. Moira is... what's the word... just a little suspicious.

He was surprised that Alison and Haroun had left him alone. Then again, they were probably heading down to the Situation Room to update the threat database. A choked laugh slipped out as Nathan climbed the stairs to the third floor. He was holding onto the envelope his father had given him so tightly that there would probably be creases where his fingers were, even given how thick the papers inside were.

He'd kept the link carefully shielded for most of the afternoon, not wanting to pass any of his own unsettled thoughts down the link to Moira, but as he approached the door to their suite, the shield was beginning to fray. And he let it.

Moira had been in the process of making yet another cup of decaffinated tea--at this late in the game, coffee was completely out and even most kinds of tea--when the flood gates in her mind cracked open. The cup tumbled into the sink, thankfully not breaking, as she grabbed for the counter. The link had been tightly closed all day and for it to crack like that...

#Nathan?#

He opened the door to the suite, closing it quietly behind him before he turned to face her. "Well," he said a bit hoarsely, seeing her come out of the kitchen. "That went well. He's pleasant, deeply concerned about my welfare, apparently feeling somewhat guilty about the last twenty-five years, and completely perplexed as to why I think I tried to brain him with a snow shovel before I ran away from home."

Walking up to him, she eased her arms around him and frowned. "So wha' ye remember an' wha' he's sayin' happened dinnae mesh?" she asked, frowning. Nathan's childhood had always been a very sore memory for him--and with good reason--but to find out that it was completely wrong? He was obviously rather shaken up at this point.

He may have clung to her. Just a little. Her presence on the link was steadying, and that was what he badly needed at the moment. "No," he said softly, into her hair. "And he believes what he's saying, I could sense that." His jaw clenched. "He talked about my mother with such love, Moira," he went on, his throat so tight he could hardly force the words out. "It doesn't make any sense."

Moira leaned back in his arms so she could look up into his eyes. "Ye think yer memories were messed with?" she asked softly, the frown really not going away. She was trying to feel out an answer for him but none were really forth coming.

"Either that or I did it." He swallowed, leaving one arm around her shoulders and drawing her over to the couch. She ought to be sitting down, and he felt like he needed to, as well. "It's possible, isn't it?" he asked as they sank down onto the couch. Bella whistled mournfully from her cage, obviously picking up on the undercurrents of the conversation. "After everything that was done to me."

"Perhaps." Settling back against him, Moira rested her hands against her stomach thoughtfully. "Stress and what ye went through could possibly 'ave caused a mental block like tha'. But it would 'ave affected other things as well. Thin's closer ta th' source of th' stress."

Nathan looked down at the envelope. "I'm so confused," he whispered. "He gave me this... I'm afraid to look. Pictures, he said, and some documents..."

"Ye want me ta go over it, Nathan? I dinnae know if yer in the right frame o' mind ta be goin' through this right now. But if 'tis important..."

"I just... want to see the pictures," Nathan said, knowing he was contradicting himself. He offered her a weak smile. "Just to see if they jog the memory any. We can go through the documents later?"

Moira nodded and kissed his shoulder. "Pictures it 'tis, then. Yer move, love, ta open it up."

Nathan opened the envelope. The pictures were easy to separate from the rest of the folded documents, and he set the rest of the package aside, his hands a little unsteady as he laid the pile of pictures on his lap. They were yellowed a little with age, but what they showed...

"It is," he said hoarsely. "I remember..." The cabins were just like he remembered. The central meeting house, the greenhouse and wind turbines...

She watched as he flicked through the pictures, leaning into his arm again. They were pretty much like he had described to her before. So why wasn't any of this different in his memory? It was easy enough to buy into the "stress caused this memory glitch"...but something was just not adding up for her. She was getting suspicious in her old age.

He got to the last of them, a picture of his family's cabin. "I don't know what to think," he said, wondering at how defeated he sounded. "He was... it was hard not to believe him, Moira."

"But somethin's nay addin' up, is it?" Moira asked, feeling along the link gently.

"I still flinched when he touched my hand. And he seemed angry for a moment, when we were talking about Mistra... and it made me want to run away and hide." The words left a sour taste in his mouth, but he needed to be honest. "I don't know how I could have convinced myself to be that afraid, if it wasn't real."

She gazed at him, chewing at her lip. "Somethin's nay sittin' right with me, nay on this. Maybe I'm jus' an old, suspicious woman but something's tuggin' at me alert buttons. Maybe it's just tha' we're so used ta emergencies and secrets were there are nay. I dinnae know, though. Maddie checkin' into his background an' everything?"

"Well, the FBI did, before Madelyn told me," Nathan said a bit weakly. "I can't imagine they weren't thorough? They knew from my file what I thought I remembered... that's why they were so careful." He reached forward, laying the pictures atop the envelope. "The really sad thing?" he said, his voice shaking a little. "A very large part of me wants him to be telling the truth."

"Shh, o' course ye do. Hell, Nathan, I want him ta be tellin' th' truth." Tugging, Moira had him move even closer and she snuggled into his arms with a sigh. "When yer settled an' all, we can run some tests an' do other things to test th' memory lapse. And have Maddie an' the FBI do some even more diggin'. Cannae hurt. Right now, though, tha's nay importnat."

"I'm so glad you're here," he said quietly, closing his eyes. A faint, sad little smile tugged at his lips. "And the can-do problem-solving attitude is much appreciated, too, by the way..."

"Have I ever been any other way?"

"No." He leaned back a little, but only enough to be able to kiss her on the forehead. "Love you."

"Love ye ta, husband o' mine."

Later, Haroun finds a brooding Nathan and manages to both talk a little sense into him and encourage him to unwind.

There were times he honestly wished he smoked. It would be nice to have a low-violence form of working off stress - although smoking was just as not-good for one, Nathan thought with a touch of tired wryness and slouched in the chair, staring blindly out at the grounds. No one had come out onto the porch since he'd been here. This was probably a good thing.

Haroun broke Nathan's streak by stepping out onto the porch, a steaming cup of tea in each hand. "Ah, there you are." he said, taking one of the other porch chairs and handing Nathan a cup of mint tea. "You looked thirsty." he said by way of an explanation. "Hell of a day today." he said, settling into his chair to stare out at the back yard.

"Uh-huh. Moira's napping," Nathan said a bit defensively, wondering if this was going to be more of the same conversation from in the car. "I needed some fresh air." He gazed down at the tea, then took a sip. "Emulating Charles?"

"Heaven forbid." he said with a laugh. "Look. I'm not out to chew you any more. Got that all out in the car. I'm not here as Jetstream, just as Haroun. Thought you could use a friend, or some company at the least." he said. "I think I'll give thanks to God today that my family is a stable, normal thing." he said with a laugh. "I don't envy you what you're going through. This can't be easy."

"What's not easy about it?" He couldn't quite keep the bitterness, or the confused pain, out of his voice. More chewing out he could have dealt with. Sympathy... not so much. "The chances are pretty good that I invented twelve years of my life. Seems pretty straightforward to me."

"You don't know that." he said cautiously. "The mind's a tricky thing, and yours is as unto Swiss Cheese in a lot of ways. This Saul could be spinning things to make himself look good and to throw you into confusion. Which, you know, seems like it may be working."

"He seemed like he was telling the truth." It was pretty much the only response he'd managed back in the car, too. "I didn't sense anything that made me think he was lying. And the envelope he gave me..." Nathan trailed off, his expression blank as he stared off into the distance. "The pictures match my memories."

"I don't mean to rub salt in your wounds, but a good lie is 90% truth. And you know as well as I do how easily photographs can be faked. Amazing what you can do with Photoshop these days." he said, then sipped at his tea. "If someone's got an extensive file on you, this sort of thing could be a crafted setup."

"Why?" He wrapped his hands around the mug, ignoring the increasing sting from the heat. "Seriously. Whatever he says about what happened, he is my father. I don't see what he could want to go to so much trouble to trick me."

Haroun shrugged. "That I can't answer." he admitted. "But you know as well as I do that something's not right here. It's too sweet a frame."

Nathan looked sideways at him, his expression turning almost defiant. "And what if it's the truth?" he asked, a bit more sharply. "Is there some reason why the worst possible explanation has to be the right one all the time? Fuck." His head jerked back around, and he stared straight ahead, his jaw clenching.

Harun shrugged again and sipped at his tea. "Because occasionally I'm too suspicious. Comes from my choice of career." he admitted. "But seriously - I think we need to poke into this guy a little harder. If we're wrong we're wrong! That's the best possible outcome - you get your father back, we can all celebrate. But if I'm right - if _we're_ right and this is a frame - you could be walking blind into a pit of vipers."

"I'm not adverse to looking into his background a little more," Nathan said stiffly. "I'd thought of asking Jake to check up on the business side of things. To see if the timeframes all match up, at least."

"That's a good start. We can put somebody from Intel on it if you want. It's worth it, and the threat board's relatively green right now. We can spare a person for a few days of digging. No more than that, but that much we can do." he offered. "Believe me when I tell you this - nobody wants this guy to be legit more than me. I know what it would mean to you, to Moira and the baby, to that demented shitstorm you call a childhood. Help put it behind you once and for all. So I want to be wrong. I really do hope I'm wrong. But I'm not just going to close my eyes and wish really hard that I'm wrong. People die when that happens."

"I hate this." It slipped out before Nathan could help himself, and his hands clenched tight around the mug of tea, all the furniture on the porch rattling. "I hate it. I swore to myself that I wasn't going to let this knock me down, whatever he had to say, but I'm sitting here and I can't think straight." He gave a strained, humorless laugh. "I should be as gung-ho about making sure as you are. Not wanting to shove my head in the sand..."

"So let me be gung-ho on your behalf." he said expansively. Haroun kept an eye on the rattling furniture, but otherwise did not let himself react to the telekinetic slippage. "What are friends for?"

Nathan took a deep breath, then another, running over a meditative pattern in his mind yet again. "Orphans dream about finding their parents again," he said, a bit more calmly. "About having them walk right back into their lives, to say that it was all a mistake, that they never meant to leave them, that they love them... but I wasn't an orphan."

Haroun shrugged. "Nope." he said agreeably. "I'm not going to give you shit for wanting to believe. That would be really, really dumb. Hell, _I_ want to believe, and I've got no direct stake in this!" he said. "Anyway. It's been a bitch of a day. Whaddya say to a couple of games of pool and a beer, down at Harry's? Might help you unwind..."

"I think alcohol would have me flat on my ass in about five seconds flat. Do you know how much I've slept this week?" Nathan straightened in his chair and winced, stiffening as the muscles in his back let him know yet again that they weren't fond of this much tension, thank you very much. "Pool, though, maybe..."

"Pool it is." he said with a laugh. "I've got a nice clean $20 that says you go down best three out of five, straight-up. You cheat once, your cash is mine."

After the pool game, Nathan runs into Alison on his way back upstairs. They're both quite a bit calmer, and Alison is perhaps a little reassured to find that Nathan is thinking more clearly about the situation - or at least, recognizing why he's not thinking as clearly as he should be.

Amazing what a good game of pool could do for one's mood. Sending a quick reassurance to Moira that yes, he was coming to bed, and yes, he was fine, Nathan made a quick detour to the kitchen, remembering that they'd been out of spring water in their kitchenette upstairs. Whistling tunelessly, he pulled the fridge door open, looking for one of the bigger-sized bottles.

He couldn't say that he was calm, or happy, but calmer was about all he could really ask for at this point, he suspected. The urge to crumple somewhere in a corner and let the whole mess sort itself out had faded, at least, although thinking too hard about the conversation... about his father, still brought on a strange tightness in his throat that on any other day would have offended his pride.

Though she was just heading from the music room to go upstairs and turn in for the night, Alison couldn't resist peeking in the kitchen to see who was there. "Heeeey..." She knew Haroun had dragged him off for a game of pool and figured he was probably showering now to get rid of the cigarette smoke that clung after any outing of that sort, knowing how she hated that.

Wrinkling her nose just a bit at Nathan, who was proving her right on the score of stale cigarette smoke being all pervasive and evil, she still grinned at him. He looked better than before. Shell-shocked on the edges, but better.

She was smiling. This was good. And that had been an actual coherent greeting that had come out of her mouth, as opposed to how she had sounded in the car. "Hey," he said, with a brief, hesitant smile. "Um. I guess we've both calmed down a little?"

She still wanted to unscrew someone's head. Just not in a raving incoherent way now - more like focused. And what she'd been doing had been a great way to simmer down, considering the enormity of it all. Shifting a bit, ruffling the music sheets she was holding in reaction, Alison nodded slowly. "Haroun told me to go play with my guitar to try and calm down." The smile, which had dimmed, grew a bit at that. "It helped. Besides. Angry and incoherent won't get anyone anywhere."

"He sent you off to play with your guitar and coaxed me off to play pool. I think there was a grand plan there." Nathan found a large bottle of spring water, at very nearly the back of the fridge, and pulled it out, finally closing the door. "I think curling up with Moira when I get upstairs is sounding like a very good idea," he said with a sigh. "I don't even want to think about what my dreams are going to be like tonight."

Alison tilted her head, considering the way he was in fact, doing rather well with things when you took everything into consideration. "Mmm. Maybe it won't be so bad... either way, you're... well, doing a lot better than I probably would in that situation." She repressed any urge to rant on about Saul, or whatever else might be likely to dim her present mood.

"I have a dead civilization from the future in my head," Nathan pointed out, with a very faint, wry smile, "and I grew up as a mindcontrolled mutant supersoldier. All things considered, if I wasn't starting to deal a little better with the weird shit I'd be an awfully slow learner." His eyes met hers again, the wryness tempered by sadness. "This is bravado, of course. Maybe it comes down to pride, and just not wanting to fall apart again."

"You're saying it, though." Pointing that out was dead easy and yet it struck Alison as important nonetheless. "Heck, you figured it out, processed it on your own." Leaning back on the doorframe, she hugged the music sheets to herself. "I'd say you've come a certain distance. Wouldn't you?"

"I would," he said with a nod of agreement, "but the downside of that is that when you leave yourself open... well, you leave yourself open. Trusting more easily, wanting to believe in people... I wanted to believe him, today," he admitted a bit painfully. "All the questions I should have been asking, and I couldn't. I wanted..." He stopped, shaking his head. "I'm going to ruin our calmer moods here," he said, a bit more steadily.

She reached out, letting go of the music sheets with one hand long enough to pat his arm reassuringly. He would get through this. And well - he had friends beside him to keep an eye on him and help if need be, as well. "Nathan? It'll work itself out. Regardless of what happens or what's what, I figure just betting on you is the wise thing to do."

"It helps, you know." The confused sadness didn't leave his eyes, but his features were lit suddenly by a real, if slightly unsteady smile. "That none of you are writing this off to me inventing my childhood, even if that's what turns out to have happened. I don't... think I could have handled feeling like my friends see me as unstable. I've fought so hard to get back on solid ground."

"There's also the fact that this can't be simply figured out." She remembered the dream she'd witnessed only too clearly, and was unable herself to believe it might all have been a sham. She shrugged a bit, though her expression was somber. "One step at a time." It was all that could be done. And that tracking down a few FBI agents, but that was Alison's pet project now.

"Well, I think my next step is leading me upstairs to my wife," Nathan said, mustering another smile. "It'll all still be there in the morning. But I'm going to take a couple of the evil little green pills and see if I can't get a solid night's sleep. It's been a while since I did that."

"Sounds like a very good idea." Alison eyed the fridge and decided trying to wheedle mint tea being made by Haroun was more interesting than anything old juice. "Shall walk up there with you. I've a mind for mint tea all of a sudden and I know the best place to get that in these parts." She winked at him, pushing away from the wall.