xp_logs | Nathan and Jean, Tuesday night

Backdated to Tuesday night. Nathan comes down to medlab to get the cast taken off his arm, and gets run through the machines that go ping when he mentions to Jean that he may be having some early side effects of the new medication.

Nathan's expression was carefully flat as he made his way down to medlab. "Jean?" he called out quietly as he came through the door. A head poked out of the office in response to his call, and he smiled faintly. "There was some promise of cast-removal this evening?" he asked, raising the still cast-encased arm.

Jean blinked at him for a second. "Wha... Oh, right. Right." Reaching up to tug off her reading glasses, she slipped them into the pocket of her lab coat and gestured towards the main room. "How's it feeling? The last set of x-rays looked good."

"Sore, still," Nathan said, sitting down on the examining table, "but better. I've been doing what I can to try and strengthen it. Had broken bones before, after all." His voice was subdued as he spoke, and his expression was unreadable as he watched Jean examine the cast, bending his arm back and forth.

"Well, sore, in the big picture, is not a problem. Hold on a second," she said, disappearing into the back room and returning with the plaster saw. The noise of the saw preventing conversation, but Jean split her attention as she worked, considering Nate. She wasn't used to him so completely shutting her out and wasn't sure what was up. Shutting the saw off, she cracked the cast and removed it, smiling at him. "And since you have done this before, you know how to put yourself through the range of motion tests..." she said,

Nathan gave her another small smile in return and began said tests. "Feels good to have that off," he said, his voice just as low as before. "That, and the dressings... I'm starting to feel semi-intact again. It's a nice feeling."

Jean did not say that it was a feeling he should try to hold onto more often. She didn't even think it very loudly, as she was well aware that he did try not to get injured and also that he was touchy about his tendency to end up in the medlab on the best of days, and this was not seeming like the best of days. "I'm glad to hear you're feeling better in general. Physically, at least..." Looking up from her notes on his exercises, she arched an eyebrow at him, leaving him an opening if he felt like talking.

"It's been an odd couple of days," Nathan said softly, continuing with the exercise. His jaw clenched a little, not from pain. "You know," he said, almost inaudibly, "I woke up this morning from a dream. I was back here with Ani and Tim and Mick, a couple of days before we went to Youra, and I knew what was going to happen. So all I had to do was tell them, and it'd be different." His eyes flickered away from hers. "But I'd lost my voice."

"Ah..." Jean said softly. "Ouch."

Nathan finished the exercise, lowering his arm back to his side and rubbing at it. "It's different than it used to be, you know," he murmured. "Remembering the people that I've lost. I don't get... lost in it, anymore. Or avoid it like the plague for fear that I will." The corner of his mouth tugged upwards in a sad, hesitant half-smile. "But I'm really not sure that the... ache is really preferable. I suppose it has to be. I can remember the good times, not just see the dead. I think that's what the word 'bittersweet' was coined for, though."

"It's progress, in a way. A healthier way of dealing with the pain. Maybe I've got a... strange view of it, but I've always been glad that Scott and Hank and everyone could get to that point, eventually. It is better to be remembered, and missed, than simply to be... a source of grief and pain. The grief and pain are there, that's inevitible. But that can't just be all there is."

The smile was a little steadier, a silent recognition that she had a perspective that few could really share. "I think I'm getting there," he said, then gave her a ghost of a grin that flickered and died. "Small fits of backsliding aside. Did you know that I'm emo?"

Jean blinked at him. "Ah... no? Please tell me you're not planning on spending your evenings brooding up on the flyers' platform."

"Oh, is that what emo is?" Nathan said, with his best approximation of an innocent look - which would have been quite good if it had been less half-hearted. "I was wondering. Kids these days and their jargon, you know... oh, also I am a jackass, but I think we all knew that already."

"Uh huh." She gave him a look, suggesting that while she might not say it, she wasn't going to object. "And so what brings about this revelation of your emo-hood and jackassery?"

Nathan gave that some thought. "Forgetting myself," he said, then shrugged, smiling a bit at the look she gave him. "Doesn't really matter. Suffice to say I let frustration drive again - you'd think that at nearly forty years old I'd be learning not to do that. Especially when it does things like land me in the hospital on a regular basis."

"I think that, at almost forty, you've got a lot of bad habits pretty well ingrained. Which is where the regular basis comes in. But," Jean added, smiling, "I've never believed you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

"I've still got a little flexibility in me," Nathan said, his lips twitching. "Not a lot, but a little." He closed his eyes suddenly, frowning a little. "Oh," he said, sounding more distracted, "I suppose I ought to mention this, just in case it isn't the hangover, which wasn't all that bad anyway. Headache, today, and kind of a weird one. I'm hoping it's not the new medication."

"Weird how?" Jean asked, turning and flipping back in his file to the relevant pages. Headaches weren't one of the standard side effects, but Nathan's reactions to drugs were often far from standard.

"Comes in waves, then goes away entirely. I feel lightheaded afterwards," Nathan said, then opened his eyes again, sighing. "And my stomach was unsettled today, but again, might have been the fact that I was stupid and had two whole beers with Cain yesterday." He gave Jean a slightly defensive look. "I checked with Moira to make sure alcohol wasn't going to screw anything up. Just... wound up toasting the dearly departed and all."

Jean nodded absently, not about to scold. "How often do the headaches come? How long do they last? When did they start?"

"A few seconds? They're not really headaches, I suppose, if they're just short stabbing pains behind my eyes that come and go and leave me feeling dizzy." Nathan shrugged. "And I had a couple yesterday. Several today. Um, maybe ten or eleven?"

"That's definitely new, and doesn't sound like something these meds would do... I take it there's no obvious external cause? Do they come randomly, or are they periodic? And you know you're going to get pinged, yes?" She offered him a little smile at that.

"You're going to ping me?" Nathan asked in a woeful little boy voice, and proceeded to demonstrate to Jean just why Scott would always take second-place in the 'puppy-dog' look contest. "Without buying me dinner first? I feel so used."

"Oh ho, the woeful look. Not going to work, Nate. Scott at least knows better than to try that one down here... But I'll buy you dinner later. Or, you know, hand you over to Dani, Jamie or Rahne, who ever's on duty up in the kitchen. Into the machine with you, and if you'd be willing to hang around until another one of these headaches hit, I would really like to get readings either during or right after. Or both."

"Hard-hearted woman," Nathan accused, heading over to the aforementioned machine. Oh, this was getting to be old hat. "Have you been taking lessons from my wife? And yes, I know you consider that sort of accusation a compliment..."

Jean grinned. "Yes, I do, and yes, I have. Ever since I was small." She moved to the control pannel to start the machine warming up. "Well, I can't bribe you with chocolate, but I can offer to treat you to a nice night out, away from the school when things calm down..."

"Sounds like a very definite plan," Nathan said, relaxing on the little padded bench. "There's an interesting Armenian place in the city where I took a field trip once... last October, actually." He made a thoughtful noise. "I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have, because I had the flu at the time."

"Aw, that's no good. You should definitely go back when you have tastebuds." She set the machine to run and eyed the results as they started to scroll across the screen. "Well, that's interesting..."

"Are the little lines doing something interesting?" Nathan asked and then winced, a hand going to his temple. "Ow. There we go again." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Funny little headachelets..." he said a bit feebly.

Jean's eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. "They are indeed..." she said, distractedly. She'd wanted a reading of one of his headaches, but hadn't really expected life to comply. "Stay put until after it goes away," she added. Oh, Moira and Hank were really going to want to see this...

"Not going anywhere." The pain surged, then finally ebbed, leaving him dizzy and feeling very slightly sick to his stomach. "Air sounds like it's buzzing," he muttered, keeping his eyes closed. "Or maybe it's inside my head, I don't know."

"I'm going to show these to the others before I atempt to say anything specific, but this is new, Nathan. A very new sort of strange for you. Have you had any more blackouts, any at all?" The fact that, now that the headached had passed, his brainwaves were settling into a slightly different path was... interesting.

"Since I started taking the medication? Not that I can remember - and I'm not even remembering checking out, so I don't think it could have been happening. That much at least I usually retained," he said a bit dryly, but raised an eyebrow at her as she bent over the machine, studying the readings. "New type of strange? Really?"

"Yes, really. You seem to have found some new and interesting way to confuse us." Jean let the machine run a little longer, making sure there was enough of a record of the new pattern before ending the scan. "You can come out, if you're up to it."

Nathan emerged, giving her a dubious look. "My brain is confusing?" he said with a sigh. "That's really new? Wait, you said a different kind of confusing..." He shook his head - a bit gingerly. "My head isn't going to explode, is it? That's always so messy."

"An entirely new and different sort of confusion, yes. But we draw the line at head exploding." She saved the results into the secured medlab file, flagging it for the others to look at. "I've got to tell you, I don't know what this is, so it's hard for me to say if it's good or bad."

He let the air in his lungs out on a soft sigh. "Well, at least it's not immediately bad." Even the uncertainty was depressing, though. "So do I stay on the pills for now, if you don't think that's what's causing this?"

"Yes, keep on with the meds. The blackouts are a bigger problem, I think, and the chance that these headaches are related to the medication seems remote to me. Although it's possible that the blackouts and the headaches are related, and we've only managed to treat the one problem..."

"Great," Nathan muttered, and then stood up. "Sorry. Don't mean to be sounding petulant-" It came out automatically, given the reactions he'd gotten the previous week. "I'll be diligent with the medication," he said a bit woodenly.

Jean was too tired over all to let that pass entirely. "Don't bother apologizing to me. I only insist you take the meds, not that you be happy about them."

"All right." He mustered up a lopsided smile. "Thanks for taking off the cast, Jean. At least my chances of accidentally braining Moira in her sleep have gone down significantly."

"Definitely an upside. I think braining is another on the list of things to avoid." She smiled at him, some of her tiredness showing in her eyes. "Take care of yourself, Nate."