xp_logs | Nathan and Saul, Tuesday

Nathan meets his father for lunch in New York. This is not something he's really been looking forward to, given that recent events have left him understandably suspicious of his father. He proceeds to do a terrible job hiding it, then gives in to tempation - on several levels. He also makes his father very happy.

Saul's choice of hotel hadn't surprised him. The house in San Francisco had been too carefully maintained in its vintage state for Nathan not to have surmised a certain taste for the historical on his father's part. And the St. Regis had a very nice view of Central Park, too. Again, not all that surprising.

So how could he guess that much about some of the relatively innocuous things that went on in Saul's head and be so totally lost when it came to the important things? Nathan nodded curtly to the doorman and inside, headed for the elevator.

Upon reaching the restaurant upstairs, he was half-reassured, half-unsettled by just how empty it was. Well, middle of the week, middle of the day... There were maybe half a dozen people in the entire place, and no one at all over on the side by the windows, where Saul was seated, waiting for him.

"Nathan," Saul gestured with his water glass, acknowledging his son's arrival. "Right on time. Excuse me for a quick moment," Saul picked up a small PDA from the table, tapping in a few commands, sending an email, then shutting the device down and slipping it into a suit pocket. "Business lunch, you know. One of the perils of being the CEO, your time is rarely your own. How are things?"

"Fine," Nathan said, mustering up a half-hearted smile as he sat down. "Moira took one look at the weather forecast, whimpered, and announced she was spending the day in the refrigerator. If it wasn't completely unfeasible at this point, I swear I'd stick her on a plane for Scotland."

"I still have trouble wrapping my brain around the news," Saul mused, giving a half smile as he took a long drink of water. "A grandfather. You're doing your best to make me feel like an old man, Nathan. But honestly, I couldn't be happier for you. If your child is as much of a handful as you were when you were born..." Saul trailed off, lost for a moment in memory. "If Moira has Esther's patience, you'll do more than fine."

"A couple more weeks," Nathan said a bit distantly. Ah, menu. Nice, distracting menu. "Things have been busy enough at the school that I haven't had much time to stew about it, thankfully. Although I keep fussing with the nursery. I suppose I want it to be perfect."

"Every father's dream," Saul intoned, "is the desire to do well by their children. And I know that no matter how many people assure you that you'll do fine, it never eases that worry inside. All I can say is that I have faith that you'll make an excellent parent." Saul dropped his eyes to the menu, indicating his order with a few murmured words to the waiter.

Nathan picked something off the menu more or less at random, and waited until the waiter departed again before he looked back up at Saul. His father gazed back at him, smiling slightly, and Nathan tried to convince himself that taking a look couldn't hurt. Could it? Saul's thoughts didn't seem quite as impenetrable today, just from what he was picking up passively. Certainly, there wasn't the same sense of static.

And if he looked, he could know one way or the other, and stop wondering if all of his instincts were telling him the wrong thing here...

"Thank you," he said instead, quietly, and picked up his water glass. "I worry. I suppose it's unavoidable, after what happened to Tyler. I'm... trying not to let the past poison the present, though."

"A sentiment I understand more than you know, son." Saul nodded sagely. He remained silent for a few moments before looking out onto the New York skyline. "Amazing city, isn't it? A bit warm for my tastes, though. I think the cool air of the Bay Area has grown on me."

"You should see it the way I see it," Nathan said, his voice low. It had been something of a revelation, driving in today with all of his perceptions still oversensitized by the events of the weekend. "The... collective impact of it is something else." His eyes flickered to the skyline, then back to Saul. "Most cities are like that, though. Living things, as much as the individuals within them are. I've just... started to notice that a little more clearly lately."

"Have you now?" Saul's voice was tinged with a bit of curious amusement. "I suppose it's different for a telepath. Seeing a group of people as almost an organic entity in itself, growing. Changing. Evolving. It's a fascinating observation, really..."

"I need to read more," Nathan said a bit abruptly. "Jung and the like. Charles is always pushing books at me. I need a vocabulary, apparently, as much as anything else these days." He stared at Saul for a moment. "It's hard to define things when you've spent so long not seeing them clearly."

"Jung," Saul couldn't mask the contempt in his voice, "was a narrow-minded atavist obsessed with the simplicity of duality. No different than Freud, just masked in the facade of academia." Pausing from his constrained vitriol, Saul finally looked over at Nathan with a sheepish grin and shrugged. "I apologize, the field of psychology has always been a layman's interest of mine, and in my experience, I've seen enough to discount most of the popular interpretations. Forgive an old man his foibles, would you?"

"No worries," Nathan said, although his eyes had widened just a little at the contained fierceness of Saul's words. "Not my area of specialty, like I said... and it's as helpful to figure out where they all got it wrong as to find something you agree with." He paused for a moment, his eyes going distant. "I tried to get an empath to read psychology once. He would have agreed with you."

"Yes, the school, of course." Saul straightened his lapels, easing back into his seat. "How have things been progressing on that front? Having never been a teacher - in the standard sense, anyway - I can imagine that the summer holds its own sort of freedom, in a way."

"I've been doing a number of independent study projects with some of the kids," Nathan said, struck again by how... natural this felt. He still hadn't tried to touch Saul's thoughts, but there was nothing about his tone of voice, his expression, his body language, nothing at all to suggest that... damn it, what am I doing? "It's less demanding a schedule. I think I overloaded myself last term, even before..." Nathan stopped himself there, shaking his head a little. "Anyway. It gives me more time for other things. Fussing with the nursery. Working on my own powers..." He looked up at Saul, watching for a reaction. "Even a little travel."

"Travel?" Saul raised an eyebrow. "I assume without Moira, you mean. One would think she's not in a state for traveling. School business, or personal?" Saul's expression was inquisitive, without betraying any guile or secrecy.

Damn it. "School business," Nathan said vaguely. "Going to curtail that for a while, shortly, of course. I don't want to be stuck on a plane somewhere and find out Moira's gone into labor."

Inspiration hit. "You know," he said, fiddling with his napkin, "I meant to ask you. I've been gradually moving more of my available funds back to the US, since it's been made more or less clear to me that I don't need to worry about anyone showing up to arrest me at any point soon. So I thought I might do something nicely legitimate with some of those funds..." He managed a slight smile. "I don't suppose you have room for another investor? A smallish one, mind you." He paused a beat. "Where do most of your investors come from, anyway? I've been curious about that."

Saul paused, glass at his lips. Slowly, he set it down, folding his hands on the table. "Well," he began after a pensive pause, "Samara specializes in data recovery, usually after some major crisis suffered by a company. Over twenty companies in the Fortune 500 keep us on retainer, which is more than enough to handle our operating expenses. Of course, a good deal of that goes into our legal department - a company such as ours has additional hoops to jump through when working with an overseas corporation, for instance." Saul drained his glass of water, motioning for the waiter. "If you were thinking of investing - we don't have an IPO yet, but the Board has mentioned it multiple times at our quarterly meetings. Or did you have something else in mind?"

The smile that came to Nathan's face suddenly was a strangely wide one, driven by an erratic sort of amusement. What, was he trying to be subtle here? Him? "Honestly? I'm a total babe in the woods about this sort of thing," he said, pausing until the waiter had retreated again. "Just getting used to the whole idea of having to think about stuff like this, I suppose. My approach to money in the past has only been slightly more sophisticated than 'find a really well-hidden rock and bury it under'."

"Investment is a wise choice for the future," Saul commended his son, nodding approvingly. "With a family on the way, it's important that you consider that. Sounds like you have some ideas already. Of course, privy as I am to the internal workings of our clients, I can't play the market myself - insider trading laws being what they are - but if you had any particular opportunities in mind...?" Saul left the question hanging in the air, thick with interest.

"I've actually become aware of some interesting opportunities in Africa recently," Nathan heard himself say, unbelievably. Smacking one's self, he told himself a bit wildly, would be satisfying yet a little too obvious. Later. Definitely later. Saul was looking merely curious, though. Just curious. No recognition, or awareness, just mild curiosity. Damn it.

"The information industry is a very complex one, isn't it?" he asked, when Saul just kept waiting. All the patience in the world. "Rescuing it, protecting it, selling it..."

Saul's eyes narrowed for a moment, then he calmly set down his glass, laying his hands flat on the table. "This isn't about an investment, is it, Nathan?" he asked in a monotone. "If you have a specific point, I'd ask that you make it. At my age, I've lost a few steps trying to dance around the issues. You may not know a great deal about me - and I do understand your reticence - but know this: since your mother passed away, Samara Data Recovery has been my life. I operate my business with what I would consider the utmost professionalism, and if you have some suspicions about that, then I will do my best to alleviate them. But don't play the ingenue with me, Nathan. You were raised better than that."

"It's not..." Nathan floundered a little, looking away, out at the skyline. "I don't have any suspicions about your company," he finally said, awkwardly, and paused for a moment again as he realized, in a moment of shock, that it was the truth. Nothing Jake had turned up suggested anything out of the ordinary about Samara. Nothing that had later come out about Eris and Gideon Faraday proved anything about Saul and Samara, anything at all.

What was he doing? But he had to know, damn it, he couldn't risk... what? "I'm presuming a lot here," he said a bit raggedly. "I know that. I'm sorry. The... problem, is that I've been so suspicious for so long, after everything... I've had to be. It's too easy to slip back into old thinking patterns. And we have an.. .interest, at the school, in mutant issues elsewhere in the world. A number of our students come from outside the US."

He swallowed, picking up his water glass. Saul was still watching him. "I don't understand how the business community functions, like I said. I don't know if connections mean what they would mean in the world I used to function in, or whether they mean anything at all."

"International corporate relations are no less mercenary, Nathan," Saul explained, visibly relaxing. "There is simply a difference in scope and, I must admit, collateral damage. I myself do not run a competitive company, we fill a rather unique niche. I am aware that many companies use... less than legal methods to advance. On the occasions that Samara has dealt with those companies, I have made a habit of severing business relations and cooperating with various government investigations." Saul paused again as the meal arrived, resuming once he had taken a bite of his club sandwich.

"It's not a low-stress world, son," he concluded, "but I go home at the end of the day knowing that I've accomplished something to help someone. A man can't ask for more, professionally."

The quiet conviction behind Saul's words hit Nathan like an almost physical blow. His reaction was almost purely instinctive - he reached out and brushed against Saul's thoughts for a moment, needing so desperately to know, to see that what sounded true was, that...

A brief, flickering cascade of images and memories reached him before he withdrew, inwardly aghast at what he'd just done. Feeling worse, so damned much worse, as what he'd seen and sensed sank in and there was nothing there that didn't match what Saul had said. No deceit. No Gideon.

"I'd have to agree with that," he said very quietly, so desperately ashamed of himself, and yet so overwhelmingly relieved at the same time. "Teaching these kids, sometimes... it's not precisely low-stress either."

Saul smiled empathetically. "And they adore you. Or at the least, respect you. Although I do have to ask..." Saul toyed with his water glass, not meeting Nathan's gaze, "how much of your past... occupation... are you still involved in, teaching at that school?"

Nathan stared down at his water glass, his conscience doing considerably more than poking at him. But he couldn't tell Saul about the X-Men. Couldn't, and wouldn't... but he had to answer somehow. Had to give him something. Didn't he?

"I'm not... blowing anything up for money anymore," he said finally, a tiny, bitter smile twisting his lips briefly. "But there's something that I know the FBI didn't tell you." He let his mind range outwards for a moment, making sure that no one was within earshot. "They told you that my former employers were no longer in existence. What they didn't mention... that's only been the truth since March." He met Saul's eyes. "I was there, to help," he said quietly, "and then I was in spinal traction and a wheelchair for the next two months. I imagine that probably makes some of the things a few of the kids said to you while you were at the school make sense now. About me not being on my feet."

Saul didn't speak for a while, eyes flickering back and forth as if calculating in his head. "You seem to have bounced back well," he finally said quietly. "I suppose there's a little of your old man in you after all. Nevertheless, I'd gathered as much from all the evasive questions. I won't pry, but I should let you know - I am concerned, Nathan. As a father myself, and soon to be a grandfather, I trust that you know what you're doing."

"I'm doing..." Nathan stopped, closed his eyes for a moment. "I almost said 'what I have to do', but that's not true. The choices I make now... they're not about guilt, or feeling like I need to redeem myself." He opened his eyes and gazed out at the skyline for a long moment. "It's about wanting to make a world I want my daughter to live in," he said, almost under his breath. "It's about wanting things to be better for her than they were for me, and being willing to fight for it." He looked back at Saul, a faint, strained smile playing on his lips. "I want the world to be something it's not. Yet."

Saul smiled widely at that, practically broadcasting overpowering feelings of paternal pride. "To a better world, then."