xp_logs | Nathan and Marie, Saturday

Marie runs into Nathan in the hall muttering to himself in Pashtun. A chance comment on her part gets her head snapped off (figuratively), but surprisingly, it also leads to something resembling greater mutual understanding. Odd how that works out, sometimes.

It was something of a relief to realize that while he had broken his brain rather comprehensively, he hadn't lost what was important. "Ze leg Pashto pwegum," Nathan muttered to himself as he headed down the hall. "Manena. Ze sterrai yem."

Marie had been having trouble quieting her mind - or more trouble than usual. She couldn't check on Scott and she didn't feel comfortable talking to most people about her date plans, so she decided to do some yoga to help clear and calm her mind. With her mat slung over her shoulder, she smiled when she saw Nate walking towards her. "Hey," she said with a wink. "Ah see you're talking to yourself again."

Nathan nearly jumped out of his skin. "Mekawa!" he protested, then stopped, shaking his head quizzically. "I'm sorry. I mean, don't do that. Remember, I don't hear you coming anymore." There was a distinct grumbly undertone to the comment, and Nathan grimaced apologetically, rubbing at the back of his neck with his good hand. "Sorry. I'm just practicing my Pashtun, since I'm going to need it. How are you?"

Pursing her lips, she shook her head. "Ah keep forgetting that. Didn't think Ah'd ever be able to sneak up on ya." She ran a hand through her hair. "Ah'm doing ok, just a little wound up from the mission yesterday." If Nate had his powers, he probably would have been able to sense that she wasn't telling the whole truth. "What's Pashtun? And why are ya gonna need it?"

"All kinds of people are managing to sneak up on me these days." No bitching, Dayspring. He eyed her for a moment. "I'm not surprised you're still a little wound up, all things considered." He didn't answer her questions, quite deliberately. He didn't really want anyone knowing he was running off to Afghanistan enough in advance to scold him for the idea.

"Now you know how the rest of us feel," she said quirking an eyebrow. Then she furrowed her brow and crossed her arms over her chest. "An' you didn't answer the question." In Marie's experience, when people avoided answering a direct question, it was usually a sign to push for an answer.

He glowered a little at her. "I don't need the 'How does it feel to be just plain folks?' speech from you, too, Marie." There wasn't much of an edge to the comment, but it was there. "And I need Pashtun because I'm going to be talking to Pashtuns."

"No need to get snippy, Nate. Friend here, remember?" she said, unable to keep a little bit of hurt from creeping into her tone. "An' Ah don't think anyone who lives here really knows what it's like to be plain folks." She leaned against the wall. "Pashtuns, huh?"

"I'm sorry." It was a bit grudgingly. "I just... can't open my mouth about how..." Miserable? Frustrating? Crazy-making? "aggravating this is without people saying 'Well, now you know how we feel' or the like."

"Ok, Ah can understand how that would be annoying. But," she shrugged and continued, "It's true. Just think about it from the 'plain' people's perspective, y'know?" She waggled a finger at him. "And consider that topic dropped. So. Pashtuns? How many times do Ah get to ask before you actually give me an answer?"

Nathan turned an interesting shade of red, his jaw clenching. "Why," he said, biting off the end of each word as he continued, "should I think about it from the 'plain' folks' perspective? Especially since they think it's funny. And Pashtuns," he went on, almost growling at this point, "because I'm going to Afghanistan, probably tomorrow, to pry into illegal doings. Lame-brained cripple and butt of everyone's jokes though I may be."

Marie blinked in surprise at Nathan's reaction, oscillating between anger, hurt and concern. She settled on a mix of the three, though her tone came out worried at first. "No one thinks it's funny. We…G-d Nate, we don't know what to say. Hallmark doesn't exactly have an 'Ah'm sorry you lost your powers an' Ah hope you get 'em back soon' card. People say what they say because they care about you. An' Ah haven't heard anyone call you a cripple but yourself." Her eyes flashed. "Self pity isn't becoming." Ah should know.

"You forget, I know what people usually think about psis, because usually I can hear it." The line of his jaw was not quite as steady, although his voice was a little calmer. "You'd be surprised how many people in this house get a smug little thrill from the idea of a telepath losing that nasty privacy-violating edge of ours. And that's not even touching on the telekinesis, because anytime I try to explain to someone why the world doesn't look right they look at me like I'm insane." He touched the wall beside him with his good hand, poking at it almost irritably. "I can tell you it's not moving, and you'll just look at me and say 'Of course walls don't move, Nathan'!"

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be listening. An' the thing is - Ah know you don't unless people are projecting. You and the psis around here don't pry, an' most of us around here know that. Same as people don't expect Kitty to walk into their room just because she can." She closed her eyes briefly as she softly said, "You don't even realize how lucky you are." When she opened her eyes, there was a curious glint in them. "An'…well, you are talking to the one person who could potentially understand."

Nathan, who'd turned a much more embarassed shade of red at Marie's all-too-true quiet comment, blinked, the hard line of his jaw easing a little at her last words. "But... it wouldn't work with me right now," he said, then stopped again, raising both eyebrows. "Or maybe I could forget everything my wife's ever taught me about genetics and act like I suddenly stopped being a mutant just because of some self-inflicted brain damage," he said more heavily, then looked down at her. "I know you'd been experimenting," he said in something closer to a usual Nathan-tone. "Do you really want to?"

"Well, Ah've never been a psi…not one like you at least." She looked him up and down. "But only if you want to and you're feeling up to it and we go some place you can sit down if you need. It can be…a bit unsettling."

Well, this was an interesting 'put your money where your mouth is' sort of situation. Nathan gazed down at her for a moment, then shrugged with his good shoulder. "All right," he said. "Staff room?" It was just down the hall.

Marie nodded and walked quietly to the room. She hadn't really expected him to agree - she obviously needed to start realizing people would say yes to just about anything in the mansion. "Now, Ah'll be getting some memories too," she reminded him. "But you can try and think about somethin' you don't mind me getting. And you can still change your mind, Ah would understand."

Nathan's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't change my mind when I say I'm going to do something," he grumbled, and inwardly pulled all his memories of the best times using his powers up to the forefront of his mind - no point in giving her a headful of things she really wouldn't want - as he closed the staff room door behind them. Thankfully it was empty.

Marie pulled off one glove and laid it on the sofa while Nate situated himself. Hesitantly, she reached out and gently touched his cheek with the back of her hand, waiting for the flow to begin and carefully watching the second hand on the wall clock tick.

It was a strange feeling. Very strange, as a matter of fact, and he was quite glad he was sitting down. The lightheadedness was as bad, all at once, as anything he'd felt in the first couple of days after San Diego.

As soon as five seconds had passed, Marie broke the contact. "You ok?" she asked as she directed the memories to a place in her mind to sort later, automatically pulling what she needed to know to use the powers. She looked around in wonder at the room that suddenly shifted and changed to be…something it hadn't a minute before. #Well then.#

Nathan blinked at the voice in his mind. "I'm... fine," he said, rubbing his eyes for a moment before looking at her. "Are you all right?" She had an amazed look on, and he realized that she really did have to be seeing it. To look like that. "Careful what you touch," he said suddenly.

"Hmm?" she murmured, too fascinated by the transformation in the room to listen to Nate. The coffee table looked…shimmery? Was that the right word for it? Reaching out for it, she smiled as it lifted up and hovered in mid air, before spinning in a circle as she twirled her finger.

Nathan had the abrupt urge to rest his head in his head. "Oh, yes," he muttered, "I forgot that telekinesis is the mutant-power equivalent of pixie sticks. Marie?" He actually cracked a smile. "That's a really fine level of control you're demonstrating there but you might want to put it down? I don't know how long you keep powers when you absorb them."

Marie reluctantly set the table down and turned to face Nate. #Well, now I see why it's been so hard to adjust to life without it.# She took a good look at him with her new vision, noting the differences there as well. #Fascinating.#

Her voice in his head was absolutely accentless. "I always wondered what you'd sound like without the Southern accent," Nathan said after a moment, a bit wonderingly himself. "You feel... green, Marie. Your presence in my head." He smiled again, almost wistfully. "Like emeralds in water," he said.

She smiled back at him. "Ah like the sound of that. Emeralds…" she drifted off with a contented sigh. "So it's always like this for you? How do you ever concentrate on anythin'?"

"Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just... sit there and feel the world around me." He looked away suddenly, blinking rapidly. "Even when I was scared to death of my own telepathy, I always had that. You listen for long enough and it's like the world sings. You can feel it vibrating around you." His voice was low and a bit hoarse, and despite his best efforts, a little pure misery crept into it.

Marie flinched slightly as she sensed his suffering at the same time as she heard it in his words. She squeezed his shoulder lightly. "It'll come back. It's obviously still there and strong because…" Holding up her other hand, she waved it towards her and her glove sailed through the air.

Nathan shook his head a little, making himself smile. "Better control in five minutes than I had in two years," he murmured, rubbing briefly at his eyes. His composure returned visibly, and even, to a degree, to his thoughts as well. "I just... I haven't really spread it around," he said with a sigh, "but I found out that Mistra infected me with the virus. Deliberately. It's complicated, I won't get into it, but after what I had to do to burn it out... thinking about my powers maybe not coming back, it kept feeling like they'd win. It's stupid, I know."

She tapped her head. "Ah get to cheat and borrow the instructions from you, so it's not exactly fair." Leaning down to pick up the glove from where it had landed, she slipped it on and watched her view of the world begin to shift again. "That must've been terribly hard to learn, after all these years. An' it's not stupid to feel like that...like they may win."

"It is, in a way. To feel like I'm still in a fight with people I saw brought to justice. It's like I can't let go. Or at least, that I'm still on the defensive." Nathan did rest his head - or at least his chin - on his hand, finally, his eyes flickering up to meet Marie's. "I've been wondering if that maybe wouldn't be the most frightening thing of all, if my powers never came back. Living without fighting. Except I know that's simplistic because I don't need my powers to fight. Depends on the battle." The crooked smile came back. "And that's almost more frightening."

Marie's smile held a touch of sadness. "Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to live without having to fight?" She looked at the room that had flattened back into her normal viewpoint. "All gone."

"Do I wonder? All the time. Do I like where my mind goes when I do? No..." Nathan looked sideways at her, then straightened, reaching out and taking her gloved hand with a squeeze. "I'm sorry. For snapping at you - you didn't deserve that."

"Ah didn't. But Ah also understand better why you did," she said, squeezing back. "Though Ah hope you don't do that to anyone else. Not everyone can get the lesson Ah just did," she said with a wry grin.

"No, I've been repressing like the old pro I am," Nathan said just as wryly. "Not a good idea. Jack will have my head." He took a deep breath, then let it out, more steadily. "Meant a lot," Nathan said more quietly. "That you offered to understand."

"Meant a lot that you were willing to share," she replied equally quietly. She thought about what it would be like to have a power like that all the time and her voice grew wistful. "It's one of the most pleasant and pretty ones Ah've ever borrowed."

Nathan was silent for a long moment, then gave her a smile that was half-wry, half-affectionate. "You just taught me something, too," he said. "It's not always a bad thing to look at your abilities through someone else's eyes. What you see isn't always what you think you'd see." Some enlightenment in return for a brief temper tantrum on his part. Oh, that was negative reinforcement...

"Lessons learned for everyone and no one broke in the process. All in all a good day then," she said smiling back. Her eyes flickered up to the clock and she leapt to her feet. "Ah gotta go." She gave him an apologetic look. "Don't mean to be abrupt, Ah just didn't realize the time."

Nathan laughed a bit wryly. "I'm sorry," he said, getting up, too. "Hope I didn't make you late for anything."

"No…Ah just…Ah gotta…Ah…Ah'll tell you later?" she stammered before spinning around and running out the door.

"Okay then," Nathan murmured a bit quizzically.