xp_logs | Rahne, Nathan and Rachel, Thursday afternoon

After being released from the infirmary to finish recuperating in his own bed, Nathan wakes up and investigates happy-baby noises. It turns out that one of Rachel's favorite babysitters, the other Scottish redhead, is looking after her this afternoon. Nathan and Rahne have a talk, and Rahne is the first of the kids to find out precisely what happened to Nathan this week.

He would never cease to be amazed by the difference between the beds in the infirmary and the beds in the suites upstairs. Possibly, it was meant to discourage long stays, Nathan thought tiredly, sitting up slowly and wincing, one hand going to his ribs. Too bad that didn't seem to have really proved to be much of a disincentive for him.

On the other hand, he wasn't in the infirmary now, was he? Nathan got out of bed, moving slowly - very, very slowly - into the washroom to splash some water on his face. The face that looked back at him from the mirror was still pale and tired-looking and lined with pain, and Nathan grimaced at himself before he headed back out into the bedroom.

There was a squeal from the living room, and he paused, then headed to the door instead of back to bed. He opened it to see two redheads on the floor - one tiny and crawling around gleefully, the other not Moira.

"Hi, Rahne," he murmured, leaning against the doorframe. Moira must be in the labs.

Rahne looked up, the smile she'd been directing at Rachel fading a little at the sight -- Nathan really didn't look well. On the other hand, he'd looked substantially worse before. No, that wasn't encouraging. She smiled again properly in greeting. "Hi. I was told I could play with yuir daughter." Well, she'd been asked if she had time to babysit, but it came to the same thing at the moment.

Rachel cooed and floated up into the air. Nathan raised a hand. "One second, munchkin," he warned her, and made his slightly unsteady way towards the couch and sat down. Rachel hovered obediently, but as soon as he was sitting, floated over and down into his lap. "Hey, sweetie," he said as she wriggled happily. "Mind Dad's ribs." Rachel made a sound that was very much a 'pfft!' and proceeded to turn over onto her back, waving her hands at him. Nathan smiled, then looked up at Rahne. "Babysitting her or me? Or both?" he teased gently.

"I think she stays put better, but Rachel really."

That was probably as close as he was going to get to a scolding from Rahne. He hoped. "Did you hear that, munchkin?" he asked. Rachel giggled. "You have more sense at eight months than your father has at forty years. Is anyone too terribly surprised at that?"

"Mah! Mah-bah!" was Rachel's reply.

Rahne patted a tiny foot. "I was going to make a cake, ye know," she murmured. "If I could beat Lorna to it."

Okay, no scolding. Augh. A scolding would have been preferable. "I don't have much luck with birthdays, do I? Last year, spinal surgery. This year, kidnapping."

"April," Rahne quoted, deadpan, "is the cruelest month. Or so I hear."

"I was born on April Fool's Day, remember? I think that was an omen." Nathan patted the empty spot on the couch beside him somewhat tenatively, and Rachel gave an encouraging squeak.

Rahne picked herself up off the floor and went to join them. "I know what to give you next year. Maybe a little early."

"Oh?" Rachel flopped over onto her stomach and crawled down off his lap and into Rahne's, chortling happily. She was, Nathan noticed, in a very good mood today.

Rahne nodded solemnly. "A fish."

Nathan blinked at her, and Rachel suddenly shrieked with laughter. "... a fish. Okay, now I'm curious."

"Marie-Ange says they say 'April Fish' in France. So perhaps a fish would defuse the other possibilities."

"You know, I'd never heard of that before. Very interesting idea, though." Nathan took a careful deep breath, ignoring the pain in his chest, then leaned back into the thick cushions. Rachel reached and plucked at the Institute sweatpants he was wearing. He patted her little hand gently. "It's okay, Ray. Dad's just feeling his age."

And his bruises, Rahne thought, careful to keep the thought in her own head. "Did ye get what ye were after?" she asked quietly.

Nathan nodded slowly. "What happened..." He trailed off, his expression very distant for a moment. "I think, actually," he said finally, "I'll let everyone know what happened. Not much reason to keep any of it secret anymore, and it might explain a lot."

"...All right."

Rachel wrapped her hand around his finger, squeezing tightly. "My father died," Nathan said very quietly, after another long moment.

Rahne glanced up at him quickly. She remembered meeting Saul Morrow, and talking to Nathan about wanting to believe him; she also remembered they hadn't mentioned the subject again before Nathan's rather snarly post not so long ago. "Oh," she said softly.

"I'm not sure what happened." There were all kinds of legal complications with the bodies and the question of an autopsy. "He was with the team, trying to help me. He..." Chose me? Did he believe that? Did he want to believe that?

"I knew he'd come here. Ms. Munroe posted about it." And then Mr. Summers had brought up shock collars.

"You know..." Nathan reached out and took her hand. "Can I just show you?" he asked with a faint sigh. "I'm going to have to come up with some way to sum it up if I'm going to let people know what happened, but I'm just not ready to do that yet."

Rahne's stomach flipped slightly -- she suspected this was going to be unnerving -- but she nodded. "If ye want."

He didn't show her everything. She didn't need to know every last detail. But he showed her quite a bit of it, managing the flow of memories very careful, so that it was as slow and gentle as possible. The restaurant last August, Saul and Gideon's revelations. Gideon's role in what had happened to him last September - if not Pete's. Dom's kidnapping. GW's murder. Those last few conversations with Saul. The meeting in New York, then what had happened in Rio and Ushuaia, ending with Askani's reappearance...

"Are you okay?" he asked, afterwards. She was blinking a little oddly.

"...A bit dazed." She swallowed. "That's...." Words failed her, and the flicker of fiery wings left a warm feeling behind her eyes like impending tears. No, those were tears.

Nathan laughed a little sadly, a laugh that turned into a wince as his ribs complained. "Yeah," he said, squeezing her hand and not letting it go just yet. "Don't cry, Rahne," he said, seeing the brightness in her eyes. "It's all over."

She squeezed back. "...Isn't that the usual time?"

"... you have a way of making me think, you know," he said a bit hoarsely, mustering up a smile. Rachel, who was still sprawled across Rahne's lap, was blinking at them both, wide-eyed. Not fussing, though, which was interesting. "Anyway... that's what's been up with me, since August. I bet a few things make a little more sense now, knowing all of that."

"Aye," she said slowly. They did, sort of, even though in some ways making sense did not seem to be something Nathan's relatives went in for.

"What I did was really risky," Nathan said ruefully, "and really stupid. And it wasn't anything I did that got me back out of it... but here I am," he said, and smiled slightly as Rachel grabbed at his hand again. "At least it's done."

"Which I can only hope and pray means ye willna do it again," Rahne said wryly. "I'm glad ye did get back."

"Yeah. Me too." Rachel proceeded to rest her chin on his and Rahne's linked hands, and Nathan surprised himself with a real, broad smile as his daughter wrinkled her little nose at them. "I think we're brooding a little too much for someone's tastes. Either that or she's pondering whether or not to gum us." Rachel had a grand total of two bottom teeth, just starting to emerge, so biting wasn't really an option just yet.

Rahne giggled at that and smoothed baby-hair. "No teething on carnivores, Rachel."

He felt... calmer, Nathan thought. Not happy, per se, but calm. Settled in a way he hadn't been since... okay, not going there. "Listen to Rahne, Ray," he told his daughter. "She gives good advice."

"I'm not sure you want her teething on herbivores, either, come to think of it. Karolina might not want to be chewed on, and I'm reasonably sure Horatio wouldn't."

"No biting anyone who can bite back?" Nathan suggested. Rachel blew a raspberry at him, and then floated off the couch, bobbing slightly in the air as she turned in lazy loops. "I have a budding astronaut," Nathan said, watching her. "Look, she's practicing zero-g already."

"Wouldna have any trouble with it, would she?"

"No. That she wouldn't." Nathan looked down at Rahne, pulling his mind away from thoughts of the last week and onto something far more pleasant. "So what are you doing in the fall?"

"I've been getting word back on university applications...." She looked down at her hands for a moment. "I was thinking it might work best to try at the one in Westchester...."

"What sort of program? I'm being nosey, I know. I just want to see you doing something you like..."

Rahne ducked her head sheepishly. "Undeclared for the first semester, actually. I... they have a pre-med program, but much as I like working in the medlab, I'm not entirely sure...."

"That's not such a bad thing, you know. You can get a taste of a number of a different things and have a better idea of what precisely you'd like to do." Rachel was still spinning slowly in the air. At some point she was going to get dizzy, Nathan was sure.

"And make sure I can handle all the intro courses," Rahne said, laughing. "I feel a bit like I'm taking advantage, though, wanting to stay here. In spite of the mess with medlab shifts."

"This place wouldn't be the same without you," Nathan said, and it was nothing but the truth. "And not just because you do so much around here."

But he hesitated, as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Roundabout way of making the point, wasn't it? Trying to speak in a general fashion, when really, it wasn't a general issue at all. "And I'd miss you so much if you weren't here," he said more softly. He'd gotten home, and damn it, he was going to appreciate home and the people who were most important to him. And tell them that. On a regular basis.

Rahne turned a shade of pink that clashed badly with her hair. "Thanks," she said quietly. "I'd miss ye too." One of a number of reasons she didn't really want to leave, for all the periodic lunacy.

Rachel finally came to a gentle, bouncing stop on the floor, and then shrieked with laughter again that Bella, in her cage, echoed. Nathan gave daughter and bird a long, patient look. "I'm not getting back for another well-deserved nap, now, am I?"

"Mwahaha!"

"I think that's a no."

Rahne laughed, but more quietly. "I could take them out for a bit, if you need the sleep, but I might have to borrow the tether."