xp_logs | Nathan and Sooraya, Saturday (Reply)

(OOC: Posted a little earlier due to AFKness today!)

Nathan takes Sooraya out for lunch to celebrate getting through her first week of classes. On the way home, something rather amazing happens.

"~I had to hunt for this place,~" Nathan said complacently in Dari as he tore off a piece of naan bread. Hot out of the oven - it was delicious. "~I didn't want to take you anywhere that served Afghan food New York style.~" And this place was about as authentic as they came.

Sooraya looked up at him, eyes wide, her entire countenence suffused with joy at being in a place that smelled so much like home. "~It is wonderful,~" she murmured, her hands wrapped around a cup of hot black tea. "~How did you find it?~"

"~A friend at the United Nations. He couldn't remember quite where it was, so I took a walk between meetings this week and tracked it down.~" His gaze lingered on her fondly. "~I figured you deserved a bit of a treat after such a good first week of classes. Well, that, and food is a very good cure for any lingering homesickness, I find...~"

"~And for rumbling stomachs, as well,~" she replied, smiling a bit impishly at him. The meal laid out in front of them was very appetizing and very filling... they had been making their way through it slowly, but Sooraya could tell there would be leftovers. Which wasn't a bad thing at all.

"~There are places like this in the city, if you know where to find them,~" Nathan said, gazing at her thoughtfully. "~You could probably find others who'd come here from Northern Afghanistan, if we looked... would you like that?~" He remembered making a similar suggestion to Haroun, to look up expatriates.

Sooraya sipped at her tea pensively, weighing the suggestion in her head. "~I don't know. I don't think they would be as friendly to me as the people at the mansion...~"

"~It's not anything you have to decide right now,~" Nathan said. He'd planted the idea; that would do for now. "~Just know that the option's there, if somewhere down the road you'd like to explore it.~"

Nodding, Sooraya smiled at him and set down her cup, leaning forward to push a dish of qaubili pilau towards him. "~Try this. You will like it.~"

Nathan tried it, then smiled at her. "~You're right. It's very good. You know the sad thing?~" he asked mischievously. "~Far too many of your classmates would not appreciate this dinner. American tastes are very narrow.~"

"~Yes, I have noticed,~" she said solemnly. "~But some of them might...~" She thought of Kyle's hot dog adventure and the creative food combinations she had seen in the kitchen. "~I will ask Angel if she would like to try some,~" she decided.

"~How are things with your new roommate?~" He'd been delighted that Sooraya had been paired with one of the best-adjusted - and definitely the bubbliest - of the new students. Scott or Ororo, whoever had made the decision, had been very clever.

"~She is very sweet, very kind,~" Sooraya replied with a smile. "~I like her. She is very... energetic. But not in a bad way. She is teaching me to take pictures... she said she would teach me to swim, but I am not so sure if I want to do that.~"

"~Swimming - not to mention American bathing suits - would be something very new for you,~" Nathan said, a twinkle in his gray eyes. "~Maybe too new? Remember what I keep saying, Sooraya. There's no need to rush. You're adapting as you can, at the pace that's most comfortable to you. Angelica seems very perceptive - I imagine she'll understand that.~"

"~Yes, I think so.~" Sooraya smiled, thinking of her roommate's efforts to make her feel welcome and comfortable in their shared room. "~And perhaps I can introduce her to some of my world as well, while I am learning of hers.~"

"~Next time we come here, we should invite her along, maybe?~" Nathan suggested.

Sooraya was torn between the urge to include her new friend and the desire to have these trips with Nathan all to herself. "Yes, I would like that," she said slowly in English, nodding at last. After all, she didn't want to be selfish, and she thought the girl would enjoy this too.

"Then that's what we'll do," Nathan said, just as deliberately - and then grinned. "~Although not every time we go.~"

This brought an even bigger smile to the girl's face, and she looked at Nathan gratefully. "~I would like that as well.~"

---

"~...I'm glad you're liking your classes,~" Nathan said as he dropped a couple of miles below the speed limit, prudently. They were well out of the city by now, and police cars equipped with radar tended to lurk along these quieter stretches of road. "~I looked in on you a couple of times. You probably didn't notice,~" he said with a chuckle.

"~I did not notice,~" Sooraya said, feeling slightly embarassed. Nathan had surely noticed that she was struggling with everything - the language, the concepts, the format of the classes. It didn't lessen the thrill she felt to actually be at a school, but she was sure she wasn't doing as well as she should be.

"~Your teachers praised your diligence to me,~" he said wisely, his eyes flickering sideways to her for a moment before refocusing on the road. Looking away from the road made him feel briefly lightheaded, though, and he frowned, taking one hand off the steering wheel to rub at the bridge of his nose for a moment. "~They think you're doing very well.~"

"~Thank you.~" Sooraya glanced at Nathan, noticing that he looked a little pale. "~They are all very kind. I will try very hard to do well.~"

"~Just remember that not being fluent in the language just yet doesn't have anything to do with how bright you are. Language is a tool,~" Nathan said, "~and once you've mastered it, the rest will come.~"

It was strange, he thought a bit dimly. His Dari sounded... stilted, too formal all of a sudden. Like book-Dari, rather than the precisely accented variety he could usually manage. It was just harder to focus than it should be...

"~Is something the matter?~" Sooraya bit her lip, glancing nervously at the road in front of them as Nathan's hands tightened on the steering wheel of the car. He sounded different all of a sudden, and his face under his tan continued to look paler than normal.

"I think I need to pull over," Nathan muttered, unthinkingly in English. Car. He was behind the wheel of a car, with Sooraya sitting in the passenger's seat, and he was not having a TK fit while he was driving. He managed to pull over onto the gravel shoulder of the road smoothly, and just in time.

The headache came on far faster and more fiercely than he was used to. Even by the standards of the headaches he'd been having since July, this was bad. Very bad. More like an explosion of pain behind his eyes, and he hunched over in his seat, fighting back nausea.

"Nathan..." Sooraya's voice trembled as she turned in her seat. This wasn't good, she could tell, but they were still quite far from the school and she didn't know of a way to contact them. She hastily opened the door on her side of the car - maybe the fresh air would help.

"It's okay," he tried to reassure her - tried being the operative word, because he could hardly manage the words. He felt the cool breeze from the other side of the car and reached out with a shaking hand to open his door as well.

But as even as he touched the handle, he felt telekinetic energy starting to shiver through the car. Out, he had to get out, he thought, panicked, and the seatbelt snapped open of its own accord. He pushed at the door and it tore itself of the car, flying through the air and landing in the grass twenty feet away as he fell out of the car, onto the gravel.

All right, that definitely wasn't good. Sooraya ignored the strangeness of what had just happened - she was getting pretty good at that, with so many opportunities to practice - and unbuckled her own seatbelt with shaking hands. Sliding out of her seat, she hurried around the front of the car to where Nathan was.

"~Please, what's wrong? What's the matter?~" she whispered, crouching down next to him. "~What should I do?~"

It took a nearly overwhelming effort to form the words in Dari, because the ground under them was shuddering, and that was not good. "~Stay... back. Please,~" he choked out, hauling himself back to his feet and stumbling farther off the road. He had to put some distance between them. No one had gotten hurt during any of his TK fits thus far, but he wasn't going to take the chance, not when it was this bad...

He made it almost as far as where the car door had fallen before he fell, a scream tearing itself free from his throat as the pain crested, like a tidal wave sweeping over him. His eyes were squeezed shut, so he didn't see the way his skin was glowing, as if lit from within. Didn't see the glow turn into burning golden light, spilling down his arms and shrouding his entire body.

But he felt it, when the wall in his mind gave way before the flood. Smoothly, easily, almost naturally, the power fell into familiar patterns.

And beside a country road, a massive glowing firebird blazed into existence, flinging its wings open almost exuberantly.

With a gasp Sooraya backed up until she hit the car, tilting her head back to take in the dazzling sight before her. Nathan's scream of pain seemed to echo around them, though its tones changed to something more triumphant in the fading sound. She had never seen anything so bright before. It was like looking into the sun, but so close that she could reach out and touch it. ~Maybe he isn't broken anymore,~ was her vague thought as she marvelled upward at the firebird.

The pain was gone.

Even its fading echoes were gone, although he was still gasping for breath, as if his body was starved for oxygen. Opening his eyes, he wondered dimly, just for a moment, why the world was lit in gold. It took only that moment for what he was feeling, what he was seeing to sink in.

Back. It was all back. He could feel Sooraya behind him, at the car. Other minds at more of a distance, the vast murmuring roar of New York in the distance and the slightly softer rumble of Salem Center, up ahead. Through the golden light of his exoskeleton, the world was sparkling beneath the surface, alive with energy.

And in the back of his mind, he heard a burst of incredulous Scots profanity as his link with Moira flared like a star. An instant later, the one with Rachel did the same.

#Oooooo!# he heard his daughter project, gleefully.

A laugh of sheer, joyful delight slipped out and Nathan launched himself into the air with a thought, the firebird's wings beating strong as the exoskeleton carried him up in a loop that was little more than a delighted caper.

Sooraya was looking up at him, clearly shocked, and he laughed again, then reached out to touch her mind - very gently.

#It's all right,# he projected. #I'm all right, Sooraya.#

#You're flying,# came the incredulous response from the girl below him. #And there is a giant bird around you....#

He was flying. He was flying again, finally, and he hadn't really processed just how much he'd missed it. With another exuberant laugh, Nathan flung himself skyward in yet another gleeful loop. He'd worried about not having control over his TK when it finally came back? This felt just the way it should. Better than it should.

Although Sooraya was still staring up at him in what looked like disbelief. And really, he needed to not scare her any further, most likely. Reluctantly, he settled gently back to the ground and concentrated - and the exoskeleton collapsed inwards. Just the way it should.

"~It's something my powers let me do,~" he said, and Dari was easy again. His mind was crystal-clear. He glanced around, smiling hugely. With the exoskeleton gone, the underlying sparkle to the world was even more obvious. "~It's a little... ostentatious, I know.~"

"~It was very pretty,~" Sooraya said, smiling. She couldn't help it; Nathan's joy was contagious. He had gone from curling in pain on the ground to flying through the air in a golden bird, and it was understandable that he would be happy. And as long as he was well, Sooraya was happy too.

Nathan took a deep breath, then let it out again, letting his eyes drift closed for a moment as he checked his shields. A little shaky. He should probably knock on Charles's door, once he and Sooraya were back at the mansion...

His eyes flew open. "I broke the car," he said, gazing at the spot where there should have been a door. "Well, crap."

Sooraya didn't know what a well crap was, but she did realize there might be a problem trying to drive without a door on the car. It seemed a rather minor concern after a display of power like that, but they were still some distance from the school...

"You can fly to the school," she suggested, switching languages as he did. "In the bird."

"I don't want to leave you here." And he didn't want to risk flying the two of them back, he thought, his good mood easing a little as he wondered about the potential of his powers cutting in and out while he was in the air. He shook his head, shaking off the thought. Moira would be able to tell him. She'd run tests. Many, many tests...

And, she could also send someone out to get them. He reached down the link, conveying that, and got approval of his caution and a promise to have someone out there promptly in return.

"Someone's coming to get us," he said, leaning back against the car with a sigh that combined contentment and wonder. "It might even be Moira."

Sooraya nodded and settled down cross-legged on the ground, content to wait there until someone else arrived. She felt safe with Nathan there, and now perhaps even more so... after all, who would bother a man who could summon a large, glowing bird at will? "~She will be happy for you?~" she asked, glancing up at him.

Nathan laughed again. "~She will probably keep me very busy for the next day or so running every test she can think of, but yes... she is happy for me.~" Because he could feel it, the warmth and relief radiating up the link.

He sat down beside Sooraya, still unable to wipe the grin off his face. "~I promise,~" he said, "~that not every trip off-campus with me will be this eventful.~"

"~Good,~" she said, unable to keep from smiling a bit mischeviously. "~Because if they were, I think they would stop letting you take the cars after a while.~"