xp_logs | Angelo and Nathan, this morning

Nathan's awake, and Angelo's allowed in to visit, for a little while.

Angelo hadn't left the infirmary waiting room since they'd brought Nathan back. Now, finally, they were letting him in for a visit, even if he had been warned it had to be short.

"Hey," was the subdued greeting from the direction of the bed as Angelo stepped into the room. Nathan was still pale and exhausted-looking, the new lines of pain in his face still all too obvious; he looked more or less as bad as he had back in Ushuaia, minus the dust and dirt from the explosion. "Don't know how long I'll be awake," he said, blinking at Angelo as if he was having trouble focusing. "Moira had Amelia shoot me full of something. I think it's to prevent me from running off again..." It was a very weak joke.

"Good," came the answer. "Not allowed to leave again." It was supposed to be a joke, but didn't quite make it.

"Not planning on it, ace, believe me..." Angelo was looking at him like he'd killed Joyita. Crap. "Moira said something about a shock training collar. With a button. So that anytime I get ideas, she just has to press it and zap." Nathan tried to smile. "I gather Scott gave her the idea."

"Her an' the rest of the school. He told Forge he wanted to talk about makin' one."

Nathan shifted a little on the bed, wincing, his pained look deepening. The nice drugs could kick in anytime now, really. The ribs were bad, but not as bad as the aftereffects of Gideon's powers. "Moira told me you were along with the team." He hadn't seen him, but then, he had kind of collapsed at the bottom of the Blackbird's ramp.

Angelo nodded, managing a slight smile. "Yeah. 'Cause I knew about Rio an' where Eris were based there. An' I had the notes from your visions."

Notes. Right. He'd noticed a notebook, a couple of times - just hadn't made the connection. "I knew you wanted to come," he murmured, his eyes drooping a little, "but you couldn't."

"Yeah, you said that," Angelo told him neutrally. "But you never said why. Except not wantin' me to be near Gideon."

"He kept taking away the people who were important to me." The drugs were beginning to kick in. The room was going all wiggly. "And he didn't like people who were going to change the future in ways he didn't like..."

"An' what ways was I goin' to change it that he didn't like? Or d'you just mean helpin' you work against him?"

"I don't know..." It was a weak sort of protest. "It was all so clear at the time, it was all bound up in what I was seeing... but now I
don't see anything." It had all stopped, gone dark at the moment that Askani had reappeared.

"You mean... your precog's burned out again? Or....?"

"Not burned out." He thought of what Askani had said, in that conversation between the explosion and his regaining consciousness, before she had faded away. "I just... saw all that I was ever meant to see." Nathan tried to muster up a smile. There were two of Angelo now.

"...I didn't know it worked like that. With a... limit." It made a kind of sense, though.

"I don't think it usually does." He was going to have to think about what Askani had said. And possibly talk to Moira and Charles. "I think I had it for a reason and now it's gone. I had to close a circle."

"And that happened by... dealin' with Gideon?"

"Complicated..." He was definitely drifting off. "Really complicated, and I can't think right now..."

"Okay." Angelo got up, but didn't move from the bedside. "I'll come by another time."

"Hey..." Nathan, struggling to keep his eyes open, reached out with the intention of laying a hand on Angelo's arm, but picked the wrong
Angelo. "I'm sorry," he muttered, blinking. "I just... I couldn't risk anything happening to you."

Angelo looked down at him, and his expression softened slightly. "You ran off an' risked somethin' happenin' to you, Nate. You think I could've dealt with that?"

"... I just wanted everyone to be okay," Nathan muttered, his eyes closing despite his best effort to keep them open. "I just... I wanted
everyone to be safe..."

"...yeah. I know", Angelo said quietly, watching Nathan go to sleep."But you matter too."