xp_logs | Nathan and Moira, Thursday early morning

Set early this morning (well before all the Askani oddness), Moira and Nathan wake up in the same bed for the first time in a week. There's some mild matrimonial violence with blunt instruments of the feather-stuffed variety, and Nathan confesses to some of the less pleasant parts of the trip to Kashmir. Moira makes a few observations that have a remedial effect on her husband's mood.

He'd slept after all. Not for too long, Nathan realized, opening his eyes and blinking at the clock. Only a couple of hours. Muttering, he shifted on the bed, trying to ignore the fact that he felt headachey and somewhat nauseous and just generally not all that good. Jet lag didn't usually wipe him out this badly. Of course, he'd come home to the news about Forge as well, so part of this might be tension.

Muttering under her breath, Moira buried further under the pillows, attempting to shield her eyes from whatever just woke her up. And, of course, the great stream of sunshine coming through the bloody window. Maybe if she threw a pillow at the window, the sun would go away.

"That sounded moderately profane," Nathan observed tiredly, catching the low-pitched grumble. "That happy to have me back, are you?" He poked her, quite deliberately, in the ribs. Lightly, of course.

Still, as light as it was Moira was incredibly more ticklish in the morning than almost any other time. Almost. She shrieked and reflexivly smacked him in the face with a well placed pillow.

"Oh, and now you're beating me," he grumbled. "I'm telling the munchkin. We'll gang up on you, you just watch..." He tossed the pillow aside, then looked up a bit groggily as he heard something fall off the dresser. Tossed it that far, had he?

"I'm shakin' in me boots," Moira replied, huffing a little as she untangled her legs from where the blanket had wrapped around them when she'd tried to make her escape. Giving up, she settled for wrapping her arms around Nathan's neck and using him for body warmth. "Ye owe me a new alarm clock."

"Yeah, yeah. It won't be the first less-than-prized possession of yours I've broken." He wrapped his arms around her in turn, holding her close. "I brought you a rug, and you hit me with a pillow. Nice."

"Would ye 'ave wanted me ta 'it ye with th' rug? Ye poked me in th' ribs!"

"Oh, yes, this is reminding me why I came home," Nathan said, mock-severely, but he didn't mean it. Couldn't mean it. Having her curled up against him was worth any amount of pillow-beatings. "I missed you, you violent woman, you..."

"I missed ye ta, ye giant nag, ye," she responded, twisting up to give him a real proper kiss. Being married meant you ignored little things like morning breath. "Our Sunshine's missed ye as well."

"I was wide awake for most of the night. She and I have done our catching up already," he said as Moira settled back down against him. "I told her all about the pretty mountains and the lousy roads and the possessed lemon of a Jeep."

"An' about losin' yer assistant?" she teased. She had caught his "I'm back!" post but hadn't been able to see him because of the debriefing. "Where WAS Angelo?"

"Made tracks for the shower, I gather. I can't blame him - that's a long flight, and the plane was hot, for some reason." Nathan made a face up at the ceiling. "I should confess, much as I hate to sour the morning mellowness. We got robbed up in the backcountry - a kid in one of the villages rifled through my bag. Grabbed some of the pill bottles. Not," he said hastily, "the antivirals, or I would have headed right back to Srinagar and the airport, but everything else..."

The hand that had been reaching for a pillow to smack him with was gently trapped by one of his and she scowled at him. "Ye should 'ave called or somethin'! Nathan Dayspring!" There was definatley chiding in that tone. "There are side effects ta nay takin' those!"

"Maybe I should have, but I didn't," Nathan said, only slightly repentant-sounding. He blamed his lack of self-preservation on the jet-lag. Really. "Angelo thought I should have, too, but we were busy, and then Gideon was there..."

Nathan was kind of on his back so Moira couldn't screech at him properly because she'd like to have eye contact when flailing at someone. So she pulled herself up partialy on his chest to stare down at him. "Come again?"

"Showed up at the hotel to talk to me," Nathan said with a weary smile that didn't have much in the way of humor about it. "And we did. Just talk, I mean. I'm fine, the hotel's fine... he walked away intact, which is a bit of a shame, but beggars can't be choosers." He sighed, reaching up to push rumpled red hair out of her eyes. "It's complicated. And thinking about it makes me want to break things." Quietly, and very succinctly, he told her what Gideon had told him -or rather implied.

The hands holding her up clenched tightly enough to crumple the bed sheets as she stared down at him in utter horror. "Oh my God." She felt an arm loop over her waist and it took her a few seconds before she let him pull her down across it chest. "...tha'...arhg...tha' fuckin' bastard."

"Yeah," Nathan said, almost lightly as he rubbed her back. "Not all that impressed with Uncle Gid. Not that I was before. I see I inherited my tendency to overdo things honestly." The combination of anger and shock and disgust humming up the link was rather... well, overwhelming, actually, and Nathan reached out almost absently to make sure none of it was getting through the psi-shielding to Rachel. "You think it would be out of line for me to just write off the first twelve years of my life? Since I don't know if any of it's true anymore, or whether it's all nightmares my subconscious brewed up to cover the fact that he took a hacksaw to my mind."

"Ye dinnae 'ave ta write it off," Moira replied, forcing her body to relax. "But it doesnae 'ave ta affect who ye are now or wha' yer doin' wit' yer life. I'm so sorry tha' yer father turned out ta be th' kind o' man he is an' yer uncle's jus' a piece o' scum, but ye've got more than enough love 'ere at home. Ye dinnae need them." Part of her mind smugly reminded her of the scene in the waiting room when Nathan was first hurt.

"I wonder about her, though," Nathan said quietly, the memory of his mother's face in the picture haunting him as it had since he'd opened the envelope. "Gideon's made it very clear what he is, and Saul..." He trailed off, troubled. "But I don't know anything about her. How she felt about any of this, who she was..." He forced himself to smile, his arms tightening around her. "I suppose I shouldn't wonder. Look at where wondering got me with the other two."

"She's safe ta wonder 'bout," Moira said softly, thinking about it. "I...yer mum lived around yer father an' his uncle but I dinnae think she was like them." She shrugged. "Yer ta good ta 'ave come from all bad, love."

Nathan's throat closed suddenly, his eyes burning, just enough to be noticeable. "I'll show you the picture he gave me. Later," he managed, his voice just a little bit hoarse. "Right now I'm perfectly happy to just-" He broke off, hearing indignant squeaking from the direction of the nursery. "-speak too soon," he concluded, "and get up and deal with the munchkin?"

Laughing a little, she brushed her lips against his before starting work on untangling herself from him and the blankets. "Or else she'll be most unhappy wit' ye," she teased, "again. Last time for leavin', this time for nay sayin' hello more often."

Nathan got up, hesitating for a moment at the wave of dizziness, even if he managed not to totter where Moira could see him. "Coming, my dulcet-voiced little redhead," he called back whimsically as the squeaking turned into an imperious shriek.

"Oh, now ye've done it."