xp_logs | Nathan and Saul, Friday night

After these emails, Nathan leaves the mansion to call Saul. The conversation goes some interesting places. Nathan asks a couple of very key questions and gets answers he didn't expect. A few things come out that maybe shouldn't have, and it all ends in an invitation.

Thankfully, he hadn't run into anyone on the way to the garage who might have asked where he was going at this time of the night in such a hurry. Nathan was holding onto a neutral mask by sheer force of will, but he could feel the cracks. Stop thinking about it, he told himself harshly. Just get in the car, drive away from the school, and then call him. His hand, in his pocket, closed around the cell phone he hadn't thrown away after the last time.

He chose the first set of keys on the rack, and drove the small blue compact out of the garage, telling himself that there was no need to rush. Squealing tires would attract attention, and he didn't want attention. Even through the careful shield he had on the link, he could sense Moira at work in the lab, and on any other night he would have been down there dragging her off to bed. And he'd do that, when he got back in. Once he'd settled down a bit so that she wouldn't see right through him.

It was a perfectly clear night, if overly warm. Nathan headed south, towards New York. The closer he was to the city, the better, he thought a bit disjointedly. Saul knew he was in New York.

What are you doing? a wiser voice asked him. Stop and think...

He wanted to stop having to think so damned much, Nathan thought a bit wildly. How ironic was this? He wanted to rely on his emotions, really wanted to, and he couldn't. They were all over the place, and there was no sorting them out, not when he couldn't know for sure, couldn't remember...

He didn't know what he was doing. Askani was grumbling at the back of his mind, unsettled but not arguing with him. Nathan took a deep breath, then another. Calm down. He should have called in the first place. Not wimped out and tried to talk about something this complicated over email, of all things.

Hell. Forget 'should have called'. They needed to talk face to face. Didn't they? The thought was profoundly unsettling, and yet, doing it this way, emails and phone calls, wasn't working either. For a moment he caught himself rethinking what he'd said to Betsy at the beginning of the week, about not wanting to scan Saul. Were the reasons to refrain really that good, when just... looking could give him the answers to some of these questions?

He drove for another twenty minutes before he finally dialed Saul's home number in San Francisco. It rang twice before it was picked up.

"Hello?" Saul answered. Sounding almost... hopeful.

Nathan started to answer, but had to stop and clear his throat. "Hey," he said a bit gruffly. "It's me. Nathan," he amended, hearing how rough his voice sounded.

There was something that sounded a great deal like a soft sigh from the other end of the phone. "I wasn't certain you'd call, son. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm sorry about the emails. I didn't think...." He faltered for a moment, wondering if part of Saul's reaction had been guilt. Damn it, he thought, angry at himself suddenly. He didn't have enough guilt of his own, he had to go provoking it in others, too? "I really am okay," he muttered distractedly. "I didn't mean to make you think that I'd nearly fried my own brain or anything." Even if that was uncomfortably close to what he had done.

Another sigh. "I'm just... concerned about you, Nathan, after hearing something like that." And he sounded concerned, deeply worried. "There is no need to put this much pressure on yourself." There was a flash of sad humor in his voice as he went on. "I may be an old man, son, but I'm not planning on shuffling off this mortal coil anytime soon. We have time to sort these things out."

Time. "I don't trust that," Nathan said, his throat tight. "I mean, it's not that I don't trust you, I just... I have trouble believing that I'm not going to... lose people, sometimes." His voice wavered. Since he'd mastered shielding the link, he and Moira didn't share dreams nearly as often, but it still happened occasionally, and those times were very often anxiety dreams. He was getting more of them, the closer Moira's due date came. Perfectly logical, according to Jack, but that didn't mean that he slept any better for knowing that the nightmares made sense.

Saul was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke again, his voice was calm, almost soothing. "What can I do to help? If there's anything, Nathan, anything at all... all you have to do is ask."

Nathan stared ahead at the road, part of him pointing out that he really ought to pull over. Driving while talking on a cell phone was not a good idea. Tended to cause accidents. "Did I have a brother?" he asked abruptly. "Or a sister?"

The silence on the other end of the phone seemed shocked, this time. Nathan waited. And waited some more. Finally, he swallowed and turned off onto a side road, pulling the car over onto the shoulder of the road.

"Saul?" he asked uncertainly. "Are you still there?"

"Your mother," Saul finally said, very slowly, "nearly died having you, Nathan. The doctor at the settlement told us it would be... very unwise for her to ever get pregnant again. And after you left..." His voice shook a little. "Even if there hadn't been the health issue, it would have felt like we were trying to replace you. That wouldn't have been fair to any other child we did have, and we knew that."

Nathan turned off the engine, leaning back into the seat. "Then it wasn't real?" It felt like he had to force the words out, for some reason. "I remember, the night I left... you telling me that she was pregnant."

"Was... that the reason you believe you left?"

"No. Not... quite." He couldn't tell him. The words just wouldn't come out. Besides, if the memories were false, maybe he needed to stop sharing them, dwelling on them. If he'd made them real by believing them in the first place... "How old was she? When she had me?" Might as well get out all the awkward questions.

"Nineteen." Saul coughed, sounding almost embarassed. "Esther was nineteen. I was considerably older than her, obviously, but we were very much in love. And she was so brilliant that she seemed far older than her years." His voice had gone almost wistful. "You weren't... planned, Nathan, but we were both so delighted when we found out she was pregnant. It seemed like proof that we were where we were meant to be. We had chosen that life, and now we were going to be a family..."

Nineteen? But he remembered... no, you think you remember. His eyes were stinging, and Nathan rubbed at them rapidly. He wanted this to be the truth, he thought miserably. But if it was, if his parents had been two completely different people than the mother and father he remembered, if their life had been so happy... why had he left? How had he wound up on the streets in San Francisco?

"Nathan?"

He'd been quiet for too long. "It just doesn't make sense," Nathan said unevenly, his voice breaking. "I can't... figure out what could have happened, if it's not the way I remember it. I don't know why I would have ever left." Saul started to say something, but Nathan went on, almost wildly. "I remember those two years in San Francisco. Living on the street. I remember like them I don't remember Alaska. There were things... things that happened," Nathan forced the words out, "when I was there. If I was going to block something out..." He squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw clenching.

"Nathan," Saul said, more softly, the pain in his voice subdued but still perfectly audible if you were listening. "Don't do this to yourself, son. Please. Whatever happened to do this to your memory, it's not your fault."

"And if I did it myself? What then? I don't want to be this weak!" It slipped out, almost panicked-sounding, and Nathan bit his lip hard, horrified at himself.

But Saul's answer surprised him. "Strength isn't about certainty," his father said gently. "A fortress is strong, but it's also unmoveable, Nathan. It either stands or it breaks. Real strength," he went on, his voice still quiet but firm, "is about taking risks. About exercising your will, not just standing fast." He gave a soft chuckle. "Have you ever heard the saying about a ship in port? 'A ship in port is safer'," he said, not waiting for Nathan to answer, "'but that's not what ships are built for'."

"That's... a little deeper than it sounds, isn't it?" Nathan asked shakily.

"I heard it once and always remembered it," was Saul's answer. "And by that standard, Nathan, you're showing enormous strength just by being on the phone with me."

Nathan swallowed, trying to think of it that way. He didn't think he could reorient his thoughts to quite that extent, whatever Saul said... or believed, and his father certainly sounded like he believed what he was saying.

"Now," Saul said lightly. "Since you've taken the risk, again... what can I do from this side of the problem, Nathan? How can I help?"

"Come to New York again?" The question slipped out, almost of its own accord. Almost a plea, and Nathan squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't do this over the phone anymore," he said weakly. "It's not working.

"Of course," Saul said promptly, then paused for a moment. "Why don't you call me in the morning and we can make arrangements then, Nathan?" he said, sounding concerned. "I'm just realizing how late it is there. You should be getting home."

"Home?" Nathan blurted, startled.

"Well. I may be misinterpreting the background noise I was hearing up until a few minutes ago, but you are in a car, aren't you?" Saul paused, but went on when Nathan didn't answer. "Go home, Nathan," he said very gently. "Wherever home is - and whenever you're ready to tell me that, I'll be happy to listen. Either way, I'll talk to you in the morning, son."