xp_logs | Nathan and Clarice, Wednesday morning

Clarice stops to ask Nathan, substituting for Haroun in Arabic class, a few questions about verb conjugation. Nathan has something of an... odd episode, and Clarice is concerned. When he snaps out of it, she makes him promise to see the doctors about it. Whether or not she believes him is another matter entirely.

It was a decent-sized group for Arabic; Haroun would have been happy, Nathan thought a little wistfully as he closed his books and watched his students depart. Ah, well. Haroun would hopefully be back terrorizing them in a couple of months, Nathan told himself optimistically.

"Hey, Mr. Dayspring?" Clarice said, hanging back after class. Even though it was only a few days into the semester, she had some questions. The summer break had not been condusive to remembering how to conjugate irregular verbs or improving her Arabic handwritting.

Nathan looked up at her, smiling briefly. "Hey, Clarice. You know, you can call me Nathan even in class. Seriously, not going to be offended by the lack of formality..."

Clarice shrugged awkwardly, she hated talking to the teachers like they were teachers. It was so....not Xavier's. "Mr. al-Rashid makes us, 'cept he insists on Arabic pretty much all the time. Which makes explaining problems hard, but..." she trailed off, "I'm babbling."

"Well, I'm just filling in for Haroun. And I'd hate to disabuse him of his belief that I'm a big marshmallow when it comes to you guys, so you can call me Nathan and we can use English if there are difficulties you can't express in Arabic." Nathan smiled again at her, but the smile faded a little as he shifted in his chair and his body decided to remind him that he hadn't taken any painkillers today. Damned burns... they were healing faster than he could have expected, but they were still hellishly uncomfortable.

"You okay? I can come back later, if you want," she volunteered, seeing his not-quite-hidden wince. As usual, he was just out of the hospital, "It's not like I'm going to rush out and do my homework now anyways."

Nathan caught the stray thought and tried not to grumble. He really wished people would stop exaggerating. Really annoyed him. "No, no," he said irritably, looking down at his books. "If you've got questions, let's-" He paused, his head jerking to one side as he caught something, a dark flicker, in his peripheral vision. Odd. "We can go over them now," he said, and abruptly wrinkled his nose. Clarice must have overdone it on the perfume this morning or something.

Clarice pulled out her textbook and opened to the chapter page, pointing at the section in question, "I don't get how the past imperfect tense conjugates in feminine verbs, it just doesn't make sense!" she grumbled, trying to make sense of the writing.

Nathan blinked and stared hard at the textbook. "It doesn't make sense," he muttered a bit faintly. The Arabic text wasn't right. "What..."

"It's the text book, Nathan...I think it'd be right, even if it is confusing. This isn't math, you know...." something was really off with Nathan. It was like he had just checked out of reality for a while, which he didn't do anymore.

Nathan's arm jerked sharply, as if the muscles had spasmed, and he made a pained noise. "No," he mumbled, "the text's wrong. Doesn't make any sense..." The words came out slurred, and he swallowed, feeling vaguely sick to his stomach and not sure why.

"Hey! Look at me!" Clarice commanded, realizing something was very wrong. "You gotta focus on me, Nathan," she held his chin gently and looked into his eyes. "Pupils dilated, unresponsive," she muttered to herself, making sure he didn't fall over and hurt himself.

Nathan jerked away from her touch, as if in a panic, and gripped the edge of the desk desperately, shuddering, as his chair rocked backwards dangerously. "I'm... okay, I'm okay," he repeated shakily, and as the strange feeling seemed to ebb a little, said it again. "I'm okay." The muscles in his arm were still twitching, though, and he winced. "Ow. Sorry," he said, realizing just how worried Clarice looked. "Just checked out for a minute there, I guess." He mustered up a wan smile. "You know how we wacky psi-types are." His stomach was settling, and his vision was clearing again. Okay. Moment past. Good.

"Wacky psi-types. Right." Clarice repeated, not even trying to hide her disbelief. She knew what she saw, regardless of what he wanted her to think. "You need to go to the medlab."

Nathan blinked, then shook his head. "I certainly do not," he protested weakly. "The doctors are too damned busy these days to be worrying about my little episodes..."

"So you've had them before," Clarice stated in a no-nonsense manner. She was in full EMT-mode, even if she didn't have her spiffy jacket on. Although now was not quite the time to push the medlab idea, "How many times?"

Nathan gave her an uncomprehending look. "Uh. Always? Constantly?" Although that one had been odd. And no visions, so it probably hadn't been a precognitive flash... huh. "I'm a precog and a telepath, Clarice - my brain's not well-wired under optimum conditions."

"Not what I meant and you know it, I've been here long enough to know when you have a normal precog whatever and when you don't. That was different," although he did have a point about his wet-ware not working so well sometimes. Made her damn glad not to be a psi.

Nathan gave her a wary look. "My powers... have been a little off. Since my accident," he said. "This is probably just related."

Sighing dramatically, Clarice closed her book, "'Off since your accident'. Nathan, please. Make me happy and give the docs something else to do?"

Nathan rolled his eyes right back at her. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, managing another faint smile. "Mother hen. Stop by my office hours tomorrow and we can go over your questions. I promise to be a little more with it."

"Deal," Clarice stuck her hand out, making him shake on it. And she would be watching.