xp_logs | Nathan and Jean, Thursday afternoon

Nathan takes a break from rapt baby-watching in order to get back to the daily telekinesis practice with Jean. He finds out she's made some rather significant progress.

He had promised Jean that they'd get back to their daily practice today; they had after all missed the last two days, and Nathan was feeling like a very bad telekinesis practice-partner. Also a very tired telekinesis practice-partner, but he was going to have to learn to cope with feeling that way for the foreseeable future, after all. At least Moira and Rachel would be moving up to the suite tonight. That should help.

He opened the door of the training room where they'd been working - it had a table and two chairs and absolutely no other features, and he'd been wanting to change locales for a while now. The walls were white. Bugged him.

As he saw Jean sitting in there waiting for him, and what she was doing, his eyes just about bugged out. "Whoa," he said, his gaze on the pencil hovering a foot off the table. "Now, why do I feel like I just missed Rachel's first steps or something?"

Jean hadn't heard him approach, her concentration on the pencil far too absolute for her to hear his shielded mind. The door opening, on the other hand, she had heard, and a smile broke out across her face at his words. "Not quite first," she managed, although the pencil wobbled slightly as she spoke. "Did it years ago and, um, you know. Thing." She definitely had the feeling that if she tried too hard to think about what to say she'd drop the pencil, and she wasn't ready for that yet.

Nathan sank down into the chair opposite her, raising an eyebrow. "I'd say this definitely classes as a breakthrough, though," he said, letting his perceptions slide downwards to get a look at the telekinetic lines of force. "You're straining. Is it hard?"

"Just, um, out of practice. No stamina." Jean wondered if she could put the pencil down, rather than just drop it, and very slowly it began to descend, although it wobbled more and more as it went.

"Still. You're definitely doing it consciously," Nathan said, watching the pencil descend. "Have you got the patterns in mind?"

About an inch above the surface her concentration finally gave out and it dropped, hitting the table and rolling towards Jean. She caught it before it fell off the edge, then finally looked up at Nathan, still smiling. "Yes," she told him, "but it's strange. Honestly, I think without the patterns I wouldn't have managed it. It feels... different, now. My powers. It's like... it's like my center's gone astray. I can still center but it's not where it was or, something." #And it remains as silly as ever to try to talk about this sort of thing with words.# Although her mental voice sounded much fainter and more tired than usual.

#We're not precisely working with an exact science here, are we?# Even after all these months, he still didn't know why the pattern-visualization works the way it did, why psionic energy-structures were as they were. He levitated the pencil himself, spinning it as he did. #This is progress. And if it's a case of stamina, more practice will help. I'm not sure what the problem is with your center, though...#

Jean managed not to stick her tongue out at him for showing off, although she did wrinkle her nose. #Yes, I think, now that I found the way to the power, it's just a matter of building it up again, like my shielding and projecting. And I don't think it's exactly a problem with my center. It's just different. Which, as Charles pointed out the other day, isn't surprising. It has been two years, and two years where I was living without using my powers at all, so I wouldn't have noticed the changes. So now I just have to think the extra second, remember to find myself before I start instead of relying on habits that aren't... aren't right anymore.#

#Adaptation and conditioning for stamina. Makes sense.# He floated the pencil back down to the table. "So, pick it up again," he said briskly. "Something done well once is always done better fifty times when it comes to this sort of thing."

This time she did stick her tongue out at him, but she was still smiling and she immediately settled back into her chair, letting her breathing relax as her mind shifted back into the patterns he had taught her. It took longer than it had before, of course, and more concentration, but the pencil slowly lifted off the table.

Nathan watched - and yawned, hugely, just as she had the pencil back up to the same height she'd had it before. "Oh... sorry," he said sheepishly.

"S'okay. Nobody around here sleeps properly. Also, baby." There was less wobble in the pencil's motion this time.

Nathan bit his lip and then severed a few strands of her pattern. Cutting just a couple of the lines of force, to see what her reaction was.

The pencil wobbled sharply, it's tip dropping suddenly. Instinctively, Jean corrected, shooting the tip back upwards. And upwards. And... The pencil slammed tip first into the ceiling and snapped before falling to the table with a clatter. Jean blinked. "Um... ooops."

Nathan smiled with a certain weary, wry amusement at her. "Too much force, Jean."

She didn't actually project the dry 'you think?' that floated at the top of her mind, but she certainly wasn't shielding the thought. All she said, though, was "I know. When I don't stop and think about what I'm doing, either I get nothing or I get... that."

"So your conscious control needs to be very conscious. Better than the alternative." He reached out and picked up the pencil, noting the snapped tip. "All fun and games until someone loses an eye?" he quipped.

"Yes, quite." The dry tone that slipped out was definitely a sign that she was getting tired, although she wasn't at all ready to stop yet. "Habits and instincts which need to be changed and relearned. Practice. Yet more practice. And then more practice again, just to be sure."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," Nathan said and held out his hand, palm up. The pencil floated upwards. "Try and take it from me."