LOG: Jennie and Nathan, Monday Morning

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Jennie says goodbye in Greece, and it's Nathan's turn to be there.



The service was beautiful. All in Greek of course, so Jennie didn't understand a word of it. It was held in the tiny orthodox church up the hill from her grandparent's house in Santorini. Mercifully, her mother had requested cremation so Jennie didn't have to stare at a box and think about her mother's body inside of it slowly rotting away. Instead she had focused on the icons behind the altar. Jennie and her mother had never been one for church, but it seemed to be what her grandparents had wanted. She had been sandwiched between her grandmother and grandfather, her grandmother crying freely and dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Her grandfather had only stared straight ahead, one bony hand resting atop hers. The incense and the airless church made it very hard to breathe, and Jennie was afraid she would faint during communion, but at last it ended and the doors were opened. Jennie now sat on a bench outside the church overlooking the bay. The city looked exactly like a postcard, all white houses with blue roofs and a sparkling emerald water. At any other time she would have been happy to see something like this in real life. Now she just felt like there was something sharp lodged in her chest.

A shadow fell over her, briefly, before Nathan sank down beside her on the bench, holding out a bottle of water. "You should drink some of it," he said very gently. He'd gotten it from one of the street vendors, then circled back around to the church. "You know, this is where Moira and I took our first vacation two years ago?" he asked. "We were in this church, looking at the icons."

Jennie accepted the bottle and drank from it gratefully. her hands shook a little when she screwed the top back on. "Thanks." She said huskily. The incense seemed to have settled in her throat. "Small world, huh?"

"Very small world. I was hobbling around on crutches. Recovering from getting shot several times, unsurprisingly enough." He stared out at the bay, smiling a little. "I remember being so annoyed that I couldn't go in the water," he said, keeping his voice light, soft, the whole conversation undemanding.

"You do do that a lot, don't you?" Jennie said dully. It wasn't that she wasn't interested or didn't care what Mr. Dayspring said, it's just that she didn't seem to have any feeling left. She seemed to have left it all back in Haller's office, a million years ago. She took another drink of water. "I can't believe my mother wanted to leave this. It's so pretty."

"It's yours, too, you know," Nathan said, gazing down at her. "Maybe not a home, but a place where you have family. Your grandparents... they're very good people, very kind."

Jennie's eyes blurred. They were, weren't they? So unlike Uncle Nikos. They had embraced her and kissed her when she stepped out of the car, told her how pretty she (and skinny) was in their thick accented English. They told her to call them "Bapi" and "Baba." She hadn’t admitted this to anyone, not even Marius, but she had been so scared that they wouldn't want her. A bastard granddaughter with no father. But she had been so wrong. "They are, aren't they?" She said thickly.

"It meant a lot to them that you were there," Nathan said quietly. "I didn't need telepathy to be able to tell that. They loved your mother, and they love you."

That was too much for Jennie. She wasn't quite sure if it was what he said or the way he said it, but Jennie suddenly found herself crying and she couldn't stop.

Nathan put an arm around her shoulders after a moment and shifted closer. He had been told, once upon a time, that his hugs were not half-bad. He hoped that was still true.

Jennie leaned into his hug and clung to his jacket. She wondered if this was what it was like to be held by a father. She sobbed quietly until she could get herself under control. Sniffling, she mumbled into his shirt, "I got your jacket wet."

He chuckled softly, rubbing her back soothingly. "It'll dry, sweetie, don't worry."

She hiccupped. "Thank you for coming." She said quietly. "I don't know if I could have done this on my own. And I sure as hell can't cry like this in front of Marius."

"Eh, he might surprise you." Nathan was smiling, though. "But you're welcome. I wish it had been under better circumstances, but I'm glad I could help you get back to your family when you needed each other."

Jennie pulled away from Mr. Dayspring, now feeling embarrassed. She fumbled for the tissues her grandmother had given her before they left the house and mopped her face. "Thanks all the same. Even if it's only until tomorrow morning."

"You can always come back," Nathan pointed out, letting his arm fall. Teenaged pride was kicking in. That was a healthy sign. "In fact, you should maybe plan for that, sometime this summer. Get to know your grandparents and the island a little better..."

"I want to. It's weird, I don't know them at all. I want to be like we've known each other all my life, but we haven't. And that's.....I don't know, hard." Jennie's emotions were all over the place, and she suddenly felt very tired.

Nathan gave her a measuring look. "You, I think," he said, rising, "need to get out of the sun and lie down for a bit. Your grandmother would probably agree with me." He offered her both hands.

She took the offered hands and let him pull her up. They turned and walked back to the front of the church. Her grandmother was surrounded by her elderly neighbors by the church door. These were her mother's kin, the people whom she had grown up with. Her aunts and uncles and cousins and friends had all come to pay their respects, and Jennie had no idea who they were. She was a stranger. She shyly held back.

Nathan squeezed her hand gently, and then greeted her grandmother cheerfully, his Greek hesitant but passable, for a tourist.

"~I found her,~" he said with a smile.