xp_logs | Nathan and Rachel and an anniversary

Nathan is woken by nightmares that don't make any sense until he's reminded of the date. One year later, and the whole world has changed.

He hadn't realized at first why the nightmares had come back tonight, of all nights, and with such force. Not until he'd slipped out of the bedroom so as not to disturb Moira, and sat down on the couch, switching on his laptop. The date had solved his sleepy bewilderment quickly enough.

The sixteenth of August.

A year ago, he'd been coming home from hurricane-relief duty in Florida. He and Moira had spent one last calm half-night together. Then, in the morning, she'd headed into the city, to Columbia to see Strange.

Where Morgan's team had kidnapped her, to force him to trade himself. And even if it hadn't gone that way, it had gone pretty badly. For everyone.

Not a week he was going to remember fondly.

Nathan stared out into the darkness of the living room, the sleeping minds of the school's inhabitants washing against his shields like gentle waves against the beach. He sensed a few people awake, even at this hour. Charles was one of them, and a questioning tendril of thought came his way. Nathan sent back a quick reassurance that yes, he was all right, and then let himself sink back into his own thoughts.

It had been months since he'd had those particular nightmares. Here I thought I'd exorcised them on Youra... But he supposed that some things never quite left. The years at Mistra had been more on his mind than usual after what he'd found out from Saul and Gideon. But the events of last August hadn't had anything to do with his family, Nathan reminded himself. No, the Trojan Horse and his recapture had all been MacInnis' brainchild.

Nathan's expression twisted suddenly as he remembered all those weeks afterwards. Walking through life like a zombie, expecting the walls to change around him and deposit him back at Mistra, back in the White Room.

The mansion had seemed like the dream, for longer than he'd ever admitted.

He got up, moving slowly across the room to the nursery door. Opening it, he slipped in and over to the crib. Rachel was sound asleep, her fuzzy golden thoughts composed in tranquil patterns. Whatever had been bothering her for the first several nights about the shielding on the nursery, Forge and Hank's tinkering seemed to have eliminated it.

Nathan reached out and stroked her soft little cheek with a finger. Her thoughts glowed a little brighter, as if acknowledging his presence. "'For all the bitterness of man must cease'," Nathan murmured, thinking about MacInnis, about Tim and Mick and all the others.

And every battle must be ended.

His victory made a soft sound in her sleep, her tiny hands flexing and her eyes coming open. Immediately, instinctively, Nathan started humming to her telepathically, given that it had already been established as a tried and true method of sending Rachel back to sleep. It was a moment before he realized that yes, he had indeed slipped right into 'Minstrel Boy'.

Well. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

I'll tell you someday, Nathan thought, looking down at Rachel as she drifted back to sleep, lulled by the lilting melody. All of it. It was a promise to himself as much as to her. To both of them, and all his ghosts. Because they were worth remembering. Not for the horrors they'd all suffered, but for the people they'd been. For what they'd won, not what they'd lost.

And very quietly, standing over his daughter's crib, Nathan Dayspring, without quite realizing it, finally forgave himself for surviving.