xp_logs | Nathan and Alison, Saturday afternoon

Nathan spots Alison alone in the rose garden, and goes out to keep her company. They talk a little about her father.

He'd seen her from a window, passing by on the way to his office. The fact that Alison was in the rose garden wasn't too much of a surprise. She'd certainly been spending far too much of her time in medlab, and a little fresh air and sunlight could only do her good.

But the slumped shoulders and bowed head would have tipped Nathan off to the fact that she wasn't out there enjoying the sunlight even if he hadn't had his telepathy to rely upon. He'd watched her for a moment, then gone ahead to his office, but only to set down his books.

He could do with some fresh air himself, maybe.

The flowers were no longer in bloom at this time of the year, lending this particular area of the grounds an oddly bare sort of look. It suited Alison's mood just fine, as she walked through the paths framed by newly pruned rose bushes, heading for one of the several park benches laid out through the area. Reaching one of the central area benches, she sat down with a sigh, head bowed and mind full of whirling, unconnected thoughts.

Nathan approached her at a leisurely pace, careful to both make a little noise as he came closer, and to brush her mind lightly, just as a combination hello/heads-up. "This seat taken?" he asked as he reached the bench, inclining his head slightly at the empty end.

She didn't look up, already having guessed who it was from the thread of his footsteps along the path, his mental touch merely a confirmation that she'd been right. With as mall nod, she reached out, patting the place beside her lightly once before pulling her legs up, arms wrapped around her legs, heels resting on the edge of the chair. "Hey…"

Nathan sat down, watching her for a long moment before he said anything. "How are you doing?" he finally asked, gently. There was probably no need to inform her that he knew about the news concerning her father. She would assume he did, most likely. And if not... well, 'how are you' could cover a number of things.

"Numb." Her lips twitched into the ghost of a smile, though it was a sad looking thing. "It's just... all a little too much, you know?" She took a slow, shallow breath, letting go with just as much care, listening to the sound of the wind sweeping lightly through the grounds around them, winds both in the trees and on the ground rustling gently in response. "Good bad and good and bad again and… roller coaster ride doesn't even come close." Curling up a bit closer on herself, she shook her head. "It's not fair."

"No, it's not." She'd told him that her father had come through in the end with help on the patent issue, and Nathan had really hoped this could be the start of something better for Alison when it came to her family. Turning into an optimist... Or maybe he'd just wanted someone's estranged father to turn out to be a good guy after all. "I'm so sorry," he said softly, but didn't reach out to touch her. He just tried to project comfort.

"I know. So am I." There wasn't anything else to respond with, to that. There was no awkwardness to the moment though, Alison tugging the sleeve of the sweatshirt she'd liberated from Haroun's side of the closet over her hand and using the fabric to wipe at her cheeks carelessly. "He called me Peanut in the note. He hadn't called me that in… years. Years." And now he'd died. Of a heart attack of all things. And Lorna was missing and Haroun's condition, while no longer quite so desperate as it had originally been, was by no means settled yet.

"I'm glad you have that, then," Nathan said quietly. "Knowing that things could have... would have been different." It was small consolation, but it was something. He hoped she saw it that way.

"At least I won't wonder now. If…" She looked up finally, staring ahead. "I wish I'd listened to Haroun a bit better, and gone to see him sooner. But… then it might not have turned out this way, if I had. Maybe it would have been worse now, instead." She sighed, weary from the crying she'd already done and the accumulated stress of everything else as well. "If we had all the maybes in the world…"

Nathan reached out and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. There really wasn't much to say, but he tried anyway. "What he did, for you and for Haroun... it means a lot, I think. Even if that's all there was time for, in the end."

"It's funny, you know. I always though he wasn't there for me." She laughed a bit, wiping at her face again, shaking her head. "But when the chips were down, when it really mattered…" She thought of the folder lying on her desk in her room, a simple few lines giving her a solution to what might have become far too complex a problem later on, and smiled a bit through her tears. "When I really did need him, he was there for me."

Nathan smiled. "He was," he said quietly. "He really was. I did tell you that you'd impressed him with how you handled yourself when you were there." He was silent for a moment. "It must have made things a little clearer for him. How little old disagreements mattered when he was looking at the woman his daughter had become..."

"Going to make me cry again," Alison warned, even as she did just that. It wasn't the same anguish as she'd felt upon first hearing the news though - not so much more controlled as just beyond the first moment of sharp grief, perhaps.

The funeral was tomorrow. While she had no idea how her mother would react, Alison still intended to be there, with Miles.

Sometimes, even an ending was a beginning.