Nathan and Jean, Sunday afternoon

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Nathan and Jean do a little post-riot catching up, finally. He asks how Scott is. She asks how he is. (Jean is perceptive at times.)


There were any number of really fabulous things about being home again. The papers which needed marking from the time she'd been in Seattle were definitely not one of them, though. The cap of her red pen clenched in her teeth, Jean was underlying an entire passage and scrawling 'SUPPORT THIS' alongside it. It was possible she'd been marking a little too long today.

"I can hear you thinking evil thoughts all the way down the hall," came a voice from the doorway. Nathan smiled at her faintly as he stepped into the lounge, closing the door behind him. "You should have seen some of the comments I wrote on my last batch. They were bad. Very unteacherly."

"I won't even let them set up straw man arguments in our live debates. What on earth makes them think they'll get away with it in the preperatory work?" she mumbled around the cap as she finished the paper she was on before capping the pen and looking up. "Hi, Nathan. How have you been?"

"Not too bad," he said lightly, going over to the coffeemaker to pour himself a cup. "I'm drowning in G8 essays. Suspect I should have anticipated wordiness and given them an upper limit, but they're interesting reads, a lot of them. How's Scott?" He filled the cup, then took a careful sip. "I keep meaning to stop up and see him, but I've been... a little distracted."

Jean nodded. "I know." It had taken a while to figure out what was nagging at the back of her mind the first time she saw Nathan after they got home, but she had figured it out. "He's doing quite well, I think. Antsy as all hell and keeps insisting that he needs more work, but that's the best way to tell that he is getting better."

Nathan smiled again, a bit more wryly. "Doesn't surprise me. He's not the type to handle inactivity well," he said, with the easy conviction of someone who had just the same problem and recognized it easily in others.

"Honestly? Am trying to think if I know anyone who does handle it well. Seems to be a chronic problem around here at least." Reaching out for her own coffee cup Jean realized she'd emptied it at some point in her orgy of marking. That would never do.

Nathan eyed the cup. It floated over to the coffeemaker and filled itself as he sat down. "I was off Danger Room training for a few days and it was driving me nuts," he said candidly as the cup floated back to her. "Wrenched my back a bit, in Seattle, so Moira wanted me taking it easy. But all I did was go blind over my files."

Jean nodded her thanks as she took the cup back. "It's not exactly taking it easy, it's just pushing yourself in a different way?" she suggested. "Mind, I would hardly suggest that I'm not just as prone to going crazy when I don't have enough work as anyone else here."

"I've been trying to keep my mind occupied," Nathan said, propping his feet up on the coffee table with a sigh. "Helps me not to brood." And there was so very, very much to brood about.

Jean nodded. "An admirable goal. Do people know what you'd be brooding about in general, if you were to lapse?"

Nathan gave her a slightly wary look. "I'm sure they could come up with some educated guesses," he hedged.

"Some of them?" she asked. "Don't worry, I'm not suggesting you need to broadcast to the masses. I just wasn't sure if you'd talked about it. With anyone."

"Moira. Who's worried. And Charles, of course. Who's equally worried, I think." And as if either of them needed anything else to worry about. "I'm glad we got as much of your training done when we did," he said abruptly. "One less thing to worry about. I can probably pass on the advanced techniques myself."

"I'm not worried," Jean told him. "Well, not about that." She shrugged slightly. "My training will continue how it continues."

Well, he was glad to see that she was that phlegmatic about it. But he still couldn't help but see it as one more thing that wouldn't be finished properly. Nathan stared down moodily into his coffee, then took another sip. "I'm fine," he said - a non sequitur, he knew. "Well, for now, I'm fine. That's part of the irony of it."

"Irony? How so?" Jean asked, looking puzzled.

"That I have two ticking time bombs in my system now? Or maybe that's just funny in the sad sort of way."

She sighed softly. "I don't think it's either. It's just... unfortunate. Very unfortunate. And it's unfair."

"What is funny," Nathan said, shifting a little, "is that for the first time in a long time, I don't feel at all bad about being self-absorbed. If that's what you could call this." He shook his head irritably. "Inwardly turned," he corrected.

"You certainly have justification," Jean agreed, "but I think you're being too hard on yourself. I think you are frequently too hard on yourself. Given what's happening, I don't think anyone could fairly blame you for... being inwardly turned, as you will."

"Of course they can." Nathan gave a light, brittle laugh. "Do you know why I haven't talked to anyone about it, Jean? Because I'd get a whole lot of 'Oh, well, there goes Nathan again' at the best, resentment at the worst, and none of them... none of them," he said with a sudden vehemence, "would appreciate just how... how fucking sad this is."

"I said fairly blame you," Jean said, letting the frustration in his voice and thoughts wash past her. "The kids... are teenagers. They're not fair about anything, particularly not things like this."

"There's also the fact that I would hit the first person to make a joke," Nathan said, his voice flat again, expressionless. "And given the likelihood of that being one of the kids, probably best to keep it to myself."

Jean nodded. "Understandable, believe me. In truth, I don't really think it is any of the kids' business at all, I just want to know that you're... That you're taking care of yourself. Letting Moira take care of you."

Nathan stared at his coffee again for another long moment, then took a sip. "I'll work on that," he said, quietly but a little less coldly. "It's just been hard to really... process it. Too much else going on." Not just Amanda, either.

"I know. But hey, Nathan," she said, waiting until he looked up to meet her eyes. "If you ever want to talk, I'm here for you."

He smiled, very slightly, his gray eyes pained for a moment. "~I know,~" he said, in Askani, a terrible bittersweet wistfulness in his voice. "~And I thank you for it.~"

Jean's own pain came through much more clearly in language she'd learned from their teacher. "~They say shared pain is lessened. I think, perhaps, not lessened, but soothed.~"

"It is getting," Nathan said, in English and hoarsely, "increasingly difficult to pretend that remembrance is somehow compensation for losing people I care about, one after the other, over and over..." And he'd thought that it would be different, somehow, in this case.

"I don't think anyone, or at least no one who has ever lost a loved one, would suggest that it was truly compensation. But it is all we can do."

"It's getting to be too much." He sounded five years old and vaguely sulky - or vaguely hysterical, he wasn't sure which. "I've had to..." His voice broke. "I've had to work so hard not to be terrified, all the time, about losing people." It struck him, suddenly, how much he sounded like Amanda. But then, it was an entirely different kind of loss, wasn't it? Charlies aside, she had been so afraid of people moving off, forgetting her, looking for the next best thing...

The people he lost all died.

Jean reached over to take his hand. There wasn't much she could say to that that wouldn't sound like platitudes, so instead she just sat with him.

It helped. The steady, unwavering comfort and support she was projecting at him, and the simple fact that he knew she knew. She understood, like few people at the mansion really would, or could. It was enough that he could manage the semblance of pulling himself back together.

Knuckling at his eyes briefly, he gave her a weak smile. "I really," he said, "cannot wait for Jack's reaction to this. He's going to start bringing Scotch to our sessions again."

Jean smiled in return, glad he'd been able to find at least some composure, if not necessarily peace. "How many of his grey hairs does he blame on you?"

"We're past that. Now he's blaming me for the lost ones."