xp_logs | Nathan, Saul, and a phone call

In San Francisco, Nathan heads off to call Moira and then to crash after another lengthy if alarmingly normal conversation with his father. A hour or so later, Saul gets a phone call.

Nathan yawned widely enough that his eyes watered. "Oh... I think the time difference is still screwing with me," he said a bit sheepishly, once his vision had cleared enough to let him see the mildly amused look Saul was directing at him. "This is ironic. I never used to suffer from jetlag."

"I'm guessing you've probably traveled less lately, since you've been at the school," Saul said. "That does make a difference, I think."

"Oh, I know." Nathan relaxed back into the armchair, trying not to yawn again. But he was tired. Between lost sleep and interrupted sleep and time changes and stress, he was catching himself thinking in Askani again and that probably wasn't a good sign. "I just didn't mean to yawn in your face."

"Quite all right," Saul said with a soft chuckle, gazing out the huge bay window. Bay Window indeed, Nathan thought whimsically, and then reflected that he had to be tired if he thought that was funny. "We've been sitting here talking for..." Saul paused, glancing down at his watch. "Goodness. Five hours. You're allowed to be a little fatigued."

"You've hardly been grilling me." In fact, five hours or not, the conversation had been rather... innocuous, all things considered. A slightly better quality of small talk, for lack of a better description. They'd talked about politics and literature, places they'd been, Saul's company, Nathan's teaching plans for the fall... nothing to provoke any tension whatsoever. In fact he'd rather enjoyed it. Getting a better sense of who his father was, what he believed... "Except maybe on my opinion on which government's going to fall next in the former Soviet republics," he said with some bemusement. Saul had seemed very interested in that.

Saul shrugged, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "Just an area of the world in which I've always been interested," he said. "And I so rarely get to talk to anyone who's spent as much actual time there as you have." He picked up his wine glass, taking a sip.

Nathan had hardly touched his. It was perfectly nice wine, but he didn't particularly want to get tipsy and blurting out things that he shouldn't. "Well, my personal experience is a year and a half out of date, now," he pointed out. "Things change fast in that part of the world."

"Some things are universal, though," Saul pointed out. "Human nature never changes."

"I suppose you're right." Nathan stared out at the Bay for a long moment, until it dawned on him that the sun was visibly setting, and that meant... "Crap," he said, straightening in his chair. "I promised Moira I'd call, and it must be getting late there."

Saul shook his head, smiling. "You should go do that," he said in a mildly reproving tone. "You don't want her worrying."

Anymore than she probably already is, Nathan completed mentally, and smiled a bit ruefully as he got up. "No, I don't. I think I may make it an early night, too, depending on how long I'm on the phone. You'd said something about going in to see Samara in the morning?"

Saul nodded. "And I doubt it would hurt you to get a little extra sleep," he said, giving Nathan an assessing look, though still paired with a smile. "So I'll just bid you good night right now, then? I'll be down here if you change your mind, of course."

"I'm liable to crash as soon as I get to anything approaching a horizontal position, I suspect," Nathan said wryly. "But I'll keep that in mind. Good night."

"Good night, son."

~*~

Nathan didn't come back down, of course. Saul hadn't expected him to. He sat there, gazing out the window until the sun had set completely and all he could see were the lights of the city. Gwen came in silently to refill his wine glass, and he nodded, smiling vaguely at her, his mind very definitely elsewhere. After all, he'd been given a great deal of food for thought, these last couple of days.

He was halfway through that second glass of wine when his cell phone, sitting on the end table beside his chair, began to vibrate. Saul gazed down at it for a moment, then picked it up, making note of the number displayed on the screen.

"You've been a hard man to find these last few days," he said, instead of hello. "What? No, no emergency. Just wanted to get your advice on something." He set his wine glass down, smiling faintly. "Yes, on that... no, this isn't a concession, don't get your hopes up. What? Oh, no... well, actually, he's asleep upstairs."

Saul scowled at the response to that. "Keep your snide comments to yourself," he growled. "We agreed. He's my son, and I'll let this develop as I see fit... what? No, you may not. Absolutely not." His voice took on an acid edge as he continued. "And I'm the one who's rushing things? Hypocrite."

The scowl faded a little as he listened. "All right," he sighed. "That's true enough... it has been going well, though." Saul winced. "Point," he conceded grudgingly. "... yes, another. You know, if you weren't so damnably smug all the time you'd be a far better conversationalist."

Almost unwillingly, he smiled. Just for a moment. "Everything we hoped," he murmured, more quietly. "And what he's doing now serves its purpose, doesn't it? .... of course I will," he said, a touch of exasperation in his voice again. "Give me a little credit.... No, Monday. We'll see what tomorrow brings."

Saul watched the lights of a helicopter moving towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Circling, as if it wasn't precisely sure in which direction it was supposed to be heading. "Yes, I will. Good night."