xp_logs | Trinity: Loss

After he and Cain return to the mansion with GW, Nathan has to tell Moira.

It had been a relief to find Amelia the one on-duty when they got back to the mansion. The new doctor was so composed that Nathan couldn't tell what her reaction was to having a dead body dropped in her figurative lap. It would have been too hard, if it had been Jean. Impossible, if it had been Moira.

It was going to be bad enough, telling Moira. Nathan walked out of the infirmary and stopped, sensing her approaching at a brisk pace. Hurried, but not panicked. Maybe she had seen Cain, or the back-up who had arrived too late, and realized that something must have happened. Not what, or she would have been running.

Moira spotted him before she felt him, the shielding on the link between them wavering just slightly. "Nathan? Wha's happened?" She sped up to reach him, looking him over. "Cain told me ta find ye but ye dinnae look 'urt, wha's goin' on?"

It was going to break her heart. Nathan flinched, just a little, as the realization hit. He took a deep, shaky breath and reached out, taking her hands. There was no one around except Amelia, in the infirmary. No reason not to tell her here. To tell her before she went in there and saw...

"Gideon was in New York."

Moira bit off a curse as she curled her hands in his. "Tha' bloody bastard," she muttered and then stopped, staring up at him. "Somethin' happened."

How was he going to tell her? Nathan wondered, anguish trying to crack through the veneer of shock. How was he going to tell her, or Lien, or Dom, or the others... how, how, how...

He opened his mouth and the words came out.

"He got to the restaurant where we were going to meet GW. A few minutes before Cain and I did." Nathan swallowed. "He waited until I was within synching range."

"Oh. Oh nay. 'ow much damage did 'e do?" Moira shook her head, trying to pull her hands out of his to go into the room beyond. "'ow 'urt is he? God..."

His hands tightened on hers, preventing her from moving. "Moira." His voice, impossibly, stayed almost steady. "Moira... he's gone. He... he just slipped away." Disintegrating thoughts, slipping through his fingers. No reprieve this time, not like there'd been for Alison.

She was staring at him. "He... he wasn't in any pain," Nathan stumbled onwards, fighting to get the words out. "A stroke... something like a stroke, I think..."

Moira stared at him for a second, not comprehending. "Wha'? Nay, ye cannae... nay." She yanked, still shaking her head violently, still trying to get to the room beyond them. "Nay, he's still alive. He... he was..."

There was no awareness that she was sobbing uncontrollably until she felt Nathan pull her against his chest tightly and she still struggled. "Oh God."

There weren't any more words he could find, not right then. His wife was sobbing her heart out in his arms, Nathan thought disjointedly, and his best friend was lying in the room behind him, and...

It was a measure of how much shock he was in that it took nearly five minutes for it to hit him, and the shock shattered under the explosion of terror, all at once. "Oh no," he gasped out, letting go of Moira all at once. He suddenly could hardly breathe. A vice was closing around his chest. "Phone... oh, God, I've got to call them..."

She reached for him again, grabbing onto his arm despite the tears that clouded her eyes. "They need ta know," she agreed, still crying. "Now?"

So hard to breathe. "This might not be it," he said, his voice hardly sounding like his own. "It might not be all of it. If he... all he'd have to have is the right contact in the Tunisian military, Moira..."

Moira looked horrified. "Oh my God." There was no time, they had... she stopped herself and started fumbling around in her labcoat. "Where's tha' bloody cellphone." The secure one she had to call Nathan when he wasn't in the States, the one she kept on her at all times.

As she finally found it in her pocket, he took it out of her hand and dialed the main number for the safehouse in Tunis. It rang, and rang. And rang. Nathan closed his eyes, his jaw trembling. "Pick up," he breathed raggedly. "Pick up, please..."

Curling her arms around her tightly, Moira paced back and forth, forcing herself to breathe. Her mind just wouldn't shut up or shut down, a problem when she was worrying. And she couldn't do anything, which made it worse.

"Hello?" came David's voice, gruff and startled.

Nathan swallowed. "It's Nathan. Jericho. Right now, David."

The pause was momentary. "Where?" snapped David, sounding tense now, rather than surprised.

"The school if you can all get here. Muir... Muir if not," Nathan said with a quick look at Moira, who nodded immediately.

"Right. Six hours and we'll check in." The line clicked and went dead, and Nathan stared down at the cell phone blankly.

"Nathan?" Moira said, softly, still clutching herself tightly, not sure what to do.

Nathan raised his eyes to meet hers. "This isn't..." He stopped, breathed for a moment. Calm. He had to stay calm, composed. The others weren't clear yet. "Amelia... Amelia's with him. Cain went to tell... someone. Charles. Maybe. I... I don't know."

"Probably Charles," she agreed, softly, trying to will her hands to stop shaking. "He'll know wha' ta do. Oh God."

Nathan took a step forward and took her into his arms, almost automatically. "I can't think, Moira," he whispered raggedly. "He just... he slipped away. He's gone. I was trying to hold on, but he was gone..."

Moira held onto him tightly, burying her face in his chest. She reached for the link, trying to send over comforting thoughts from her side. He hurt, she could feel it, the link radiated with it.

Nathan closed his eyes. Time seemed to be going by in odd chunks, minutes flying by as if they were seconds, or slowing to a stop. "This isn't right." The words sounded almost strangled. "This is so wrong... so wrong."

She shuddered slightly. "I should 'ave aimed higher," she said tightly, meaning every word. She shouldn't have aimed for the shoulder, she should have aimed for the head. And then this never would have happened...a wave of guilt hit her and she stiffled back a sob.

"No. No," Nathan said dully, his arms tightening around her. "It's not your fault. GW wouldn't have wanted you to kill him. He... he loves you." His own shift in tense didn't even register on him on first. "Loves you, and respects you... he doesn't want to see you in the position where you.." His voice faltered as he finally realized what he was doing, and the pain got a thousand times worse, all at once. "He j-joked once, years ago, about how if I wasn't going to get my act together he ought to give me some competition."

The laugh she gave was choked with tears. "I loved him ta, always did. Such a different person than I'd expected. I'm goin' ta miss him so verra much. I... God, Nathan, we'd jus' asked him ta be Rachel's godfather." Moira's voice cracked again.

Nathan sucked in a sharp, choked breath, fighting for calm. "Will you... come with me?" he asked finally, weakly. "I... I need to sit with him for a while."

"Aye, I will. For ye an'...I need ta see him."