Sooraya, Nathan and Rachel | dinnertime Wednesday

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Just a quiet dinner in the boathouse with Sooraya, Nathan and the telepathic baby... what, floating alphabet blocks aren't the norm at most meals? But Sooraya isn't phased, and she gets a chance to practice her English as well as hear a little poetry.

It was a bad habit, really. Worrying at the hole where a lost tooth had been had been the closest approximation he'd been able to come up with Jack had asked him, but even that didn't quite cover it. Chin resting on his hand, his elbow on the kitchen table, Nathan stared fixedly at the salt shaker, part of him dimly aware that he was zoning out again but not really caring.

It didn't move.

His eyes narrowed in frustration - and then widened as the salt shaker did indeed fall over. That wasn't me. He looked up, and snorted at the giggling toddler in her high chair. "Very funny," he said to Rachel, then looked sideways at the other person at the table with them. "~My daughter has very little regard for my pride,~" he told Sooraya.

The Afghan girl repressed a smile, glancing at Rachel as well. "~Perhaps she was trying to help,~" she suggested, though she knew that wasn't a very likely scenario.

Rachel giggled, then picked up her sippy cup - miraculously, not throwing it on the floor, but using it for its intended purpose instead. Nathan raised an eyebrow at her, shaking his head. Mischievous gray eyes precisely the shade of his own peered back at him over the edge of the cup.

"~When she's three,~" he said, getting up to clear the dishes, one-handed or not - Sooraya tended to be a little too diligent about household things, unsurprising given her background, "~she's going to be running the house. I'm almost looking forward to it.~"

Hopping up, Sooraya took her plate in hand, righting the fallen saltshaker with the other. "~She is a strong girl, it's true,~" she said, her smile growing larger now as she swept the grains of salt into a napkin. "~But I am sure she will always do as her father says.~"

Laughing in Sooraya's face would not be polite, even if it was kindly meant. "~We'll see. Her mother already does a much better job of disciplining her than I do.~" He shook his head a bit quizzically as he moved into the kitchenette. 'Discipline' a toddler - how did you do that, realistically?

"Did you enjoy dinner?" he asked - in English, and slowly.

Pursing her lips, Sooraya set the plate on the counter and the napkin in the trash - everything in its place. "It was very good. Thank you."

"I enjoy cooking," Nathan went on, then switched back to Dari. "~Although it's difficult to do anything complicated with one hand. I'll be glad to get rid of the cast.~" He gave said cast a disgusted look.

To this Sooraya said nothing, secretly thinking that he was lucky to have such medical treatment available, no matter how annoying. She returned to the table and picked up a spare napkin, wiping Rachel's cheeks with it to rid them of the crumbs and smudges that had accumulated there over dinner. "~There,~" she said, satisfied that the toddler was as clean as she could get without a bath. "~Now you are beautiful again, little one.~"

Rachel immediately held out her arms to Sooraya beseechingly, and Nathan laughed. "She is getting very fond of you," he said, still slowly, and careful to avoid contractions - Sooraya still was having some difficulty with them. "You are someone new to spoil her."

His lips twitched in amusement as he turned his attention back to the dishes. Now, will she ask me what I mean by 'spoil' or not... Idiom was a touchy thing for anyone learning English.

"Spoil?" the girl asked, scooping Rachel up easily and balancing her on her hip. "~I don't understand,~" she continued in Dari. "~I do not think I am in danger of doing such a thing to her...~"

"Spoil ~can mean ruin,~" Nathan said amiably, secretly very pleased that she had asked. Sooraya was exceptionally bright - that much had become crystal-clear to him a few days into their English lessons - but her life with the traders had left her... conditioned, much as he hated to use the word. Anytime she was comfortable enough with him to ask questions was a small victory, as far as he was concerned. "~It can also mean to treat too well.~"

The look that crossed Sooraya's face made it clear that she thought English was a convoluted and all too difficult language on the whole, though she merely nodded her new understanding. "I think," she said slowly, picking up a glass from the table with her free hand, "your father is to spoil you first, not I."

Nathan tried not to choke with laughter. The toddler and the girl who's still learning to speak English both have me figured out far, far too well... He ran the dishes under the water, then transferred them to the dishwasher. Doing these things with one hand was getting easier. "~You're phrasing things very carefully,~" he complimented her, switching back to Dari. "~Don't ever be afraid to pause, before you speak - everyone here should be patient enough to give you the chance.~"

"~I know they will be,~" Sooraya said with complete assurance, handing the glass to Nathan. "~Thank you for all your help... I could never do this without your aid. You have taught me so much already.~"

He took the glass, but paused for a moment, looking down at her with a softer smile. "~I made you a promise,~" he said, "~and it's... nothing but joy to teach someone so eager to learn.~ You will be," he went on more slowly, "more comfortable with English soon. You are learning so fast."

Smiling shyly, Sooraya shifted Rachel into a more comfortable spot on her hip. "This is a school... I am here for to learn."

"Here to learn," he said, rinsing the glass, and his words were gentle clarification instead of correction. "Or here for learning. You learn. You are learning, right now. ~Damned verb tenses,~" he said as he switched back into Dari, a twinkle in his gray eyes.

"~They are very confusing,~" Sooraya agreed with a nod, glad that it was Nathan listening to her make mistakes and not someone else. Not that she thought they would be rude or mean about it, but only because she wanted so badly to make a good impression.
Nathan finished with the dishes and turned away from the sink, shooing Sooraya and her giggling red-haired burden back out of the kitchen. "~The best way to learn is to accept the mistakes,~" he said gently, catching the barely perceptible set of determination to her jaw. Her reactions were so subtle... the emotional discipline she'd learned had been out of necessity. "~And just to keep listening. Your brain processes more than you think it does. You're learning... below the surface, too.~"

Settling down on the sofa, Sooraya deposited Rachel on the rug, next to a few toys that were scattered there. "~Everything is a learning experience,~" she observed, watching as the redheaded little girl began to pick up blocks of different shapes in her hands. "~I feel like a new person.~" She glanced shyly at Nathan; this was a highly emotional statement, but somehow she thought he might understand.

Nathan sat down on the couch beside her, smiling first at her, then down at Rachel. "~I know what that feels like,~" he said more softly. "~Suddenly you see all of these new... possibilities laid out before you. Like a feast. Or a dream. And you're half-afraid to blink, for fear that it will all disappear.~" He looked back down at her, his eyes very serious. "~But it's real.~" His smile turned reflective, but stayed warm. "~I had to be reminded of that sometimes. I'll remember to do the same for you.~"

Sooraya found herself nodding along with his description, agreeing wholeheartedly. "~Thank you,~" she murmured, dipping her eyes to her knees.

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again, his expression thoughtful as he studied Rachel playing with her blocks. "~'If you pass your night and merge it with dawn',~" he quoted, managing the translation without too much difficulty, "~'for the sake of heart, what do you think will happen?'~" Oh, but other parts of that one were better. "~'If because of your generosity and love, a few humans find their lives, what do you think will happen?'~" If you touch their hearts, what do you think will happen?

He tilted his head at Sooraya. "~Do you know who wrote that?~" he asked. "~A poet from your country, hundreds of years ago. A very wise man.~" He laughed suddenly, a little sheepishly, and placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently for a moment. "~I suppose in my roundabout way, I'm trying to tell you not to forget that you can teach, as well as learn. I've been... very proud of you, you know. I think seeing you and how you adapt to your new life is teaching all of us to appreciate ours more.~"

Despite her long-practiced self control, Sooraya found herself blushing at Nathan's words. "Thank you," she said again, in English this time. Looking up at him, her smile grew and grew, until she was nearly beaming. "I am... very happy. Here is a good place."

You are turning into a mushy old man. Nathan smiled back down at her, holding her eyes for a moment, before laughing suddenly. "~I'd forgotten,~" he said, turning back to the coffee table. "~I was going to show you a little bit more about the computer tonight.~" He reached out for the laptop. Sooraya wasn't to the point of using it just yet, of course, but she was curious, and listened very well when he explained what it did. "~I think-~" Nathan stopped, blinking down at the baby on the floor, who was levitating blocks with a fearsome amount of focus. It wasn't the levitation that had caught his attention, though. He'd seen her do that before.

Sooraya looked over as well, by now mostly accustomed to Rachel's unusual tricks. There didn't seem to be much out of the ordinary, though she wondered if there was something special about the order of the symbols on the blocks.

Projecting. She's just projecting, Nathan thought a bit uncertainly. But it had felt different, not like the odd tickle in his mind that had characterized Rachel's telepathic communications to him since his own telepathy had been out. The sense of intrusion had always been mildly disconcerting... but there had been none of that here.

He'd heard her... had he heard her? Rachel's blocks tumbled to the floor and she looked up at him inquisitively. Nathan smiled, waggling his fingers, then took a deep breath and opened the laptop.

Patience.

"~I thought I would show you the journals today,~" he said briskly.