Nathan and Terry, Thursday afternoon

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

Set after this post. Terry comes up to give Nathan a hand with Rachel and the conversation eventually turns to Tommy, and the difficulties Terry's having dealing with his presence.


"Oooo? Oooo?"

Rachel sounded exasperated, Nathan thought, and he'd be damned, but she was actually projecting, a combination of blurry images and sensations that were distinctly from the perspective of someone very small being held in the crook of a much large person's arm.

"That's almost as good as talking, you realize," he said tired, hovering over the crib. "I wish I could pick you up." But with the one arm in the sling and the bandages covering the burns on the other, he wasn't sure how. Lifting her telekinetically would have been the next best thing, but using his powers still hurt.

Terry rapped lightly on the door and poked her head in, assuming that Nathan would be expecting her. Another annoyed noise from Rachel made her grin but the sight of Nate made her smile fade. "What have you done to yourself then? Was the truck Christine?" She hadn't expected him to look well--not after several days in the hospital--but this was still rather more damage than she'd expected.

Nathan blinked at her uncomprehendingly for a moment before his mind, if a tad sluggishly, caught the reference. "Oh - horror movie, right. No, it wasn't a possessed truck. Just a very big one." Rachel squeaked indignantly and he sighed down at her. "Yeah, I know. Terry, could you come over here and pick her up? She wants to be held but I can't really do it properly."

Terry nodded and crossed over to the crib. "Come here now, little one. Stop fussing at your da." She gathered the baby up, smiling at her. "There we go. Is that better? Ready to get a better view of the world? Or is it just that you want to scold your da for walking into traffic like he's no more sense than lamb?" Terry rested Rachel in the crook of her arm so they were both looking at Nathan, two pairs of blue eyes watching him intently.

Nathan snorted softly and shuffled over to the couch, lowering himself gingerly down to sit. "She let me have it when I got back. Squawking and glaring and waving her fists at me. I don't think I was supposed to go away..." He couldn't help a faint, tired smile at how content Rachel seemed. "All you wanted was picked up, wasn't it? Brat."

Terry kissed the baby's head, "Ah, she's a darling. Just wanted some attention in this big world is all. No little one likes having her family go away." A shadow crossed Terry's face before she could shake it off. "Besides, it's no fun to lay about all day with no one to talk to."

Nathan inclined his head at the other end of the couch in invitation. "Poor neglected mite," he said softly to his daughter, who cooed, the aggravated edge gone from the fuzzy golden patterns of her mind. "So how have you been this week, Terry?" he asked lightly.

Terry sighed and sat on the sofa, tucking one leg beneath her. She fussed over Rachel for a moment, crooning to her in Irish as she got settled then glanced up at Nathan. "I'm all right. It was a busy week. Classes have been odd, doesn't really feel like school started at all." She avoided even thinking about the real upset of the last week.

Yeah, definitely some avoidance going on there... "I was lying in the hospital wondering if Kitty had opened book on how soon in the new term I'd start missing class," Nathan said wryly, "and whether anyone had any money on 'right off the bat'. I'm sure I should have been thinking more positive thoughts, but it was entertaining in a perverse sort of way."

Terry looked at him perfectly straight-faced, "I'm not allowed to comment on the existence or non-existence of any alleged pools that may or may not exist pertaining to the health of any staff member." She looked down at Rachel, "And you can't either, precious. First rule of being a kid."

Rachel squeaked and made a noise that wasn't much short of a giggle. Nathan smiled at her. "You'll all have her properly indoctrinated before she can walk, I'm sure," he said to Terry. "She's entirely too impressionable. My little mimic..."

"Your job is to raise her right. Ours is to teach her to raise hell." Terry grinned. "I promise I won't teach her to pick locks the long way. She'll have to use her TK for that."

"Hell, Haroun's baby gift was a set of X-Men leathers in her size," Nathan said without thinking, then hesitated, his expression tightening for a moment before he told himself to relax. "Moira was, uh, moderately appalled."

Haroun, Terry winced and forced herself to smile, "Aye, that is quite dreadful. Baby skin is much too sensitive for leather. Besides, the little one is too smart to want to follow Da's example and spend half her life in the medlab. Right, darling?" she asked.

Nathan laughed without thinking - and winced, his shoulders instinctively hunching at the stab of pain in his side. "No f-fair," he said doggedly, his eyes watering. "Not half my life. No more than... a quarter, seriously..."

"You can't argue with the numbers. How do you think Kitty picks the odds for the pools that may or may not exist?" Terry smiled, delighted that he'd laughed in the first place even though it upset her that it had clearly hurt.

"Snide children, all of you..." Nathan tried to smile, and did not try to straighten. He was perfectly happy where he was. "Wonder where you all get that from. Surely not from us questionable role models."

"I've had nothing but the most sterling of souls to form my character," said Terry solemnly. "My uncle, my father, not to mention the leather-clad rowdies who've been my teachers since I was eleven. You're coming late to the game." She grinned, "So you can rest assured that I, at least, am not your fault."

"Corrupt before you met me. That's a relief." Nathan leaned back gingerly against the cushions, raising an eyebrow at the woeful squeaks his daughter was producing. "I'm fine, Ray," he said tiredly, then smiled a bit wistfully at Terry. "My powers are a bit... messed up, with everything. I can't project stuff at her and she's noticing what I'm not doing."

Terry raised an eyebrow at him. "That must have been some truck." She bent over Rachel, "Tis all right, darling. Don't you worry about him. This isn't the first time he's done this and probably it won't be the last."

"Daddy is a doofus. And very accident-prone." Nathan gazed at the older of the two redheads, and decided to risk it. "Been helping out in medlab this week? I gather there's a mass effort to make things a little easier on the doctors."

Terry's shoulders tensed, "Some." She rocked Rachel gently, "Mostly just taking food down. There's nothing else I can do to help Haroun and no one thinks that I won't kill Tommy for breathing." Terry sighed and shook her head.

Rachel was cooing again, very distinctly at Terry. Interesting. Picking up on her tension? "I don't think anyone really thinks you'd kill him," Nathan said gently. "More like they're worried about putting you in the position of having to deal with him, after everything that's happened."

"If they were really worried about that they'd move him out of here where he's tried to kill people." Terry made a face then looked down at Rachel, "I'm sorry, sweetie, am I upsetting you?" She lifted the baby and cuddled her against her shoulder, kissing her head.

Nathan's expression didn't so much as flicker at the comment. "She's all right," he said softly. "Trying to make you feel better, actually, I think." He was silent for a moment. "This place has taken in worse than him," he said finally. "Admittedly, most of us who would qualify for that description weren't taken in after... harming someone here, but think about it for a second, Terry. The absolute worst thing he could imagine happening to him has happened, and I'm not talking about the beating. If or when he wakes up, his life as he knew it is over, I'd imagine." He fell silent again, remembering what he'd seen in Tommy's mind in that moment at the fair. "Dying, or never waking up, might be easier. But I think he will wake up. I hope he does. It would only be fair."

"Taken in worse. And look at how well they've turned out." Terry rested Rachel back in her lap again. "Aye, yeh're right this is the worst for him. And how much worse will it be now when he finds out that he's not only a mutant but he's got us to blame for living? And that he's got no chance to find someplace where they don't care what he was?" If they were determined to be on Tommy's side, Terry could give that to them too. "Do yeh think that when he wakes up he'll thank us for this? Sure and he'll hate us no less for it all."

"The way I see it, it doesn't matter," Nathan said calmly. "Whether he hates us or not. How much he hates himself - that's for a doctor or a shrink to worry about, if it comes to that. But taking him in, saving his life... for the doctors, it was about doing their job. For the rest of us, it should be about being better than the sick... people," he amended, his eyes flickering to Rachel, "who threw away a kid that presumably some of them cared about, just because his genes were quirky." He regarded Terry with a quiet sort of sympathy. "Don't make it about him," he said softly. "It's about us. You ever heard that nasty old saying about how a woman has to be twice as good as a man to get half as far? Holds just as true for mutants in the eyes of the world, I think."

"Aye. But for me it's not about saving his life or being better. It's about not having to look at my best friend and explain again why my ex-boyfriend who tried to kill him is being cared for over him. And trying to not see fear when my boyfriend talks about the FoH. And facing myself." Terry drew in a shaky breath and smiled reassuringly at Rachel. "He hurt my friends and I don't know how to deal with that."

"It's not an easy thing to deal with. I think it's harder to deal with when you're worried for other people than it is when it's just yourself," Nathan said. "If he wakes up, he's going to have a lot to answer for. How he does that is up to him. You have to find your own answers." He gave a tiny, tight smile. "Personally, I'd shoot for writing him out of your personal universe as much as possible. He's next door to a vegetable at the moment, Terry. Even if he woke up, there's no way he could ever hurt anyone here again. Take that away, and what is there to be afraid of?"

Terry didn't have an answer for that, or perhaps had too many. "He's here. Sometimes that's all that changes things. If he dies on now…" She just shook her head and ran her finger down Rachel's cheek, after a moment, lifting the baby and singing to her a half-remembered lullaby.

Nathan watched the two of them, inwardly cursing the kid downstairs in the medlab. Maybe he had never been taught any better, but Nathan had never considered that much of an excuse. There were a lot of ways to learn.

Maybe, if he woke up, the boy would get a chance to find that out.

Comments

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

It's about not having to look at my best friend and explain again why my ex-boyfriend who tried to kill him is being cared for over him.

You know, that reasoning only works if people know that it's Tommy who beat up Jay. :P As far as the doctors are concerned, he may have been involved with the CoffeeQuake fier and was at the State Fair when Terry was attacked, but no-one's come out and told them what he's done. And most of them aren't mind readers. ;)

*snorts* Teen logic. So very biased. *grins*

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Ah but Terry knows that at least two of the adults know and neither of them are doing anything about it. The rest of them know that at the very least Terry, who isn't generally prone to lying, says that he was responsible for the CoffeeQuake Fire. Which if it wasn't obvious before now certainly should be thanks to their information gathering unless the intel gatherers aren't you know, asking the other adults in the mansion.

And beyond all that, Terry doesn't care if they know. He still shouldn't be there because he's a bad kid.

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Sorry kiddo, medical oath. Don't necessarily disagree with you, just not going to do anything about it.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a half-dead bigot is worth more than all your students because he got himself beat up for hanging around with other bigots. Medical necessity, I get it.

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't a life, any life, be worth more than someone's comfort or lack thereof?

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

I'm confident that there are other doctors at other hospitals in the world who can take care of a coma victim.

(frozen)

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

And just when did you get your MD? He can't be moved. End of story.

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

A life is a life. It's not about worth, it's about not letting a human being die.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

You said he was stable. Let him be stable somewhere else.

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Stable as long as he isn't moved. And given police were involved with this, I don't trust anywhere else to be able to keep him safe. Given the state he was in when he arrived, someone definitely wants him dead.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Right and leaving him in the middle of invasion central will keep him so much safer.

Of course the police were involved. I could have told you that but no one asked me.

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

We haven't had a situation since the Reavers, and the security system dealt with that fine. I'm sure Mr Lee would be happy to give you an entire rundown on just how invasion-proof we are now.

You refused to talk. You made it perfectly clear you didn't want us doing anything. Can't have it both ways, Terry.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to talk about it before I knew that Tommy was in the medlabs.

Afterwards, no one asked.

It's not both ways, it's a timeline.

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Fine, you want to come down and give me the proof I need that the police are corrupt, I'm all ears. Since I've only been trying to get something since the CoffeeQuake fire...

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

What do I know? I'm just a kid.

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

When you're acting like this, you bet you are.

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

*incoherent noise of frustration* Because once again, it's not just about you. If you want to withold information that might get things to change and stop some other mutant kid from being beaten within an inch of their life because you're in a snit, go ahead.

Nothing can be done without proof. And I get get proof if you little brats prefer to keep information to yourself and angst about it instead.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

You didn't tell us you were investigating. I'm not a psi! I don't know anything IC! You don't trust us enough to talk about it.

(frozen)

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

I did, at the time of the fire - I posted to Jamie's journal saying I was checking things out. I've made noises about not getting anywhere in my own journal. It's been made perfectly clear with the Infectia thing that I still have connections with the Bureau.

The resouces are there, you know they are. You made it completely clear you didn't want the police involved, almost violently so. You didn't tell me you had a change of mind. Again, you don't get it both ways.

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

And you feel we need to ask before you're willing to share important information, even though you made it perfectly clear that you didn't want to talk about it before and have given us no reason to think that that has changed which might cause us to come ask.

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Because while there are mindreaders on staff, there are rules and ethics about scanning people constantly, yes?

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

If there weren't, I'm feeling more and more like Bobby and Terry wouldn't have left the medlab knowing our patient was still down there. -frustrated growl-

(frozen)

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Makes you want to gag the lot of them, doesn't it?

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

You said you weren't going to investigate. I didn't know that had changed. It's not like you tell the kids anything.

(frozen)

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Because we were respecting your wishes. *growls*

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Stable hooked up to the machines that are keeping him alive. Stable as long as his injuries are not aggravated by moving him.

This is not open to discussion.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Fine. I'll just shut up then because obviously I don't matter.

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Because we're obviously keeping Tommy alive and here to spite you. It's not about you, Terry. Or anyone else. Grow up.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Why? You're going to treat me like a child no matter what.

(frozen)

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Only when you act like one. Do you want Tommy to die in order for us to prove we care about your so-far-not-to-be-talked-about trauma?

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

And yet more reason why I'm just staying away from the computers IC.

How on earth did you make the fantastical leap of logic from 'I'm not willing to discuss killing this boy through negligance' to 'you're upset and it doesn't matter'? Honestly, Terry, as much as I do care that you're not handling this well and would like to schedule for compulsory meetings with Leonard, this decision is not about you.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

Because I'm upset and it clearly doesn't matter.

(frozen)

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

It does matter. It is not going to change whether or not we are taking care of Tommy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter or that we don't care. We are actually capable of caring about and for multiple things at a time. However, given you haven't actually told us any of this IC and we have a pair of almost corpses on our hands who we have to keep watch over twenty four hours a day so they don't become actual corpses, I don't think you get to throw the 'you don't tell me anything' accusation around.