Nathan and Amanda, backdated to Thursday afternoon

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

Thursday afternoon. Nathan goes to check on Amanda. He doesn't have any answers, but he does offer some perspective, and some advice.


When breathing's a burden we all have to bear
And trust is one thing we're taught never to share
Somehow you just seem to shine
When loving means breaking and saying goodbye...

There was a crunch as the small transistor radio Amanda used for studying outside smashed against against the wall, fragmenting under the impact. The witch herself was curled on her bed, still in yesterday's clothes and her hair tangled and lank from not showering. She'd thought about it, but in the end the effort had been too much. Right now, even thinking was too much, but thinking was all shecould do. Think and wonder and try and figure out what she'd done, that she'd had to lose another friend.

Nathan, out in the hall, stood staring at the door to Marie-Ange and Amanda's suite, fully aware that the young witch was the only person within. Just as he'd been fully aware of what had happened, almost from the moment Remy had pulled back into the garage. He really 'heard' entirely too much these days. Not that he actually wished he had missed this. On the contrary.

He reached out and laid a hand on the door. #Amanda?# he called out quietly. #Can I come in?#

It took a moment to 'hear' the mental voice above her her thoughts, and another to come up with a response. ~Yeah.~ She didn't bother adding anything else - Nathan was a telepath, he couldn't miss what was going on in her head. The thought made her remember Jubilee's post, and the psis' responses, and she winced. Poor bastards didn't need this - Manuel had had to go take a break, the grief getting too much for him.

"Don't worry about us," Nathan said quietly from the doorway of her bedroom. He came in and sat down on the edge of her bed. "I'm very sorry, Amanda," he said just as softly, gazing down at her. It was an inadequate thing to say, but there were no adequate words for situations like this. He'd learned that long ago.

"_You're_ sorry." Amanda gave a short, bitter laugh. "'S not yer fault Nate. I'm the one who should be sayin' sorry." She hadn't met his eyes yet, looking down at her hands picking idly at the bed covers. "I've been tryin' t' think what I might've done," she added after a pause. "That he couldn't tell me what was goin' on."

"Why is the default answer that it has to have been something you did?" Nathan asked, his voice still low.

"Because I was his friend, Nate. Me an' Remy an' Forge, we were the only friends he had. If only he'd called that nig..." She stopped, remembering a missed call on her phone that had prompted her to make Remy take her to Charlie's apartment. "No," she whispered, face paling. "He did try, only I had the phone switched off, Remy an' I were out partyin' an' I missed it."

"Stop," Nathan said, before she could say anything more. "There was no way you could have known. No way you could have possibly known," he stressed.

"But isn't that what friends're s'posed t' do? Know this stuff? Help fix things?" Amanda's voice cracked and broke. "I let him down, Nate. The magic, hangin' out with him, talkin' to him... it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. I never am, people leave an' I can't stop it no matter how hard I try an' it hurts." She'd curled into a ball by this stage, arms locked around her legs, and she dropped her face onto her knees, shoulders shaking. "It hurts an' I don't want it to any more."

"Listen to me." Nathan kept his voice low and even, but forceful. Maybe too forceful, but at least she seemed to be paying attention. "How long did you know him, Amanda? How well did you know him?"

She flinched a little at the force of his words, but lifted a tear-streaked face to meet his eyes. "A few months," she said with a sniffle, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Nate's words were bringing back that fight they'd had, about her not really knowing him, and the subsequent apology and making up - her shields were non-existent right now, and she knew she was probably broadcasting everything at him.

"Do you really think whatever was going on, whatever was in his life that he really thought this was the only way out, was new?" Nathan's jaw clenched for a moment, but he went on calmly, willing her to listen to him. "A nice, normal friend. One who wasn't all caught up in the magic or mutant drama. That's how you thought of him. If there was enough going on beneath the surface to cause this to happen, Amanda, it was there for a while. It was part of how he felt, how he thought, how he looked at the world, and he knew how to hide it."

"Maybe that's where I went wrong, thinkin' of him like that. Every time I let me guard down, that's when I get kicked in the teeth. Even told him that meself." She laughed again, the sound harsh and hurt. "S'pose that didn't exactly encourage him t' open up, hey?"

Nathan stared down at her for a long, long moment. "Where did we go wrong with you?" he asked softly. "When you tried to throw yourself off the roof."

'Lorna telling me to do it,' came the brief thought, but she didn't voice it. "I was off me head," she said at last, looking away from him. "Half-bleedin'-insane from withdrawals an' feelin' like the world's worst person. It wasn't anyone else's fault, not even Ma... not even the power source I got hooked on in the first place." Even as she said the words, she seemed to realise what he was getting at, and she turned her face to him again, looking so miserable and lost. "Was that what he would've felt like? Was that why...?" She wanted to shuffle over and curl up in his lap, but he'd become so stern, so distant lately, she didn't think she had the right any more.

"It's hard to know," Nathan said more gently, very deliberately shifting his body language a little. More open, less controlled. Just in case. He didn't want to push as much these days, but she seemed... "A person's thinking patterns, under those conditions... to them, it seems like that choice is the only choice. Even though it's not. The... 'logic'-" His lips twisted bitterly for a moment. "-is the only thing that makes sense to them." He reached out and laid a hand lightly on her shoulder.

The contact was reassuring, and she uncoiled enough to scoot closer and rest her aching head against his arm. "I remember just wantin' it all t' stop," she whispered, biting her lip. "I didn't think, 'bout anyone else, just me an' how I was feelin'. I'm glad Ange was there t' stop me. I just wish Charlie..." Had had someone to do the same. But he hadn't, and now he was gone, and it was such a stupid senseless waste. Everyone leaves.

"In retrospect," Nathan said softly, trying to ignore the sudden stab of pain at that so-clearly-projected thought - now definitely wasn't the time, "I'm glad you were there to stop me, too. But chance, and luck, and determination, any of the things that let people be there at those times... they fall short. We can't be everywhere. We can't know everything. All we can do is the best that we can."

Beth. Pete. She'd fallen short there too. And it was only luck that had saved Meggan, not anything she'd done. What was the point of having the power if she couldn't use it to stop things like this happening? Perhaps her best hadn't been enough to save Charlie, but that didn't mean it had to stay at that insufficient level. She'd just have to try harder, learn more. Get control. "My head hurts," she murmured, leaning against him a little more. "It's all been runnin' through me head since it happened, what I could've done, what I should be doin' now, tryin' t' help Remy an' Forge, an' it's all mixed up an' I don't want t' think about it any more. Don't want t' feel like this any more."

"Then don't," Nathan said a bit hoarsely. "Think about it, I mean," he went on, before she could respond. Her train of thought was all too clear to him. "There are no answers, Amanda. And even if there are, you aren't going to find them right now. This isn't the time to go looking for them. This is the time to grieve for your friend."

"I don't..." Know how. But somehow she found herself curling under his arm, half in his lap, holding onto him the same she'd held onto Remy, and Manuel and Angelo, is if afraid he'd go too. And then the tears came, and the words, and a hundred memories of a friendship that had burned bright for all too brief a time.

And Amanda grieved.